Resistance And Incorporation

This dissertation endeavors to make a deep investigation on the youth subculture theory of Birmingham School, in which the value and function of text as resources of the subculture and the value and significance of cultural studies are demonstrated. The dissertation takes the approach of subculture style and enforces various methods such as the text analysis, cultural context analysis and case study so as to make an integrated study. After a sound explanation on the composition, root causes of resistance, significance, methods of incorporation and aesthetics form of the subculture style of Birmingham School, this study summarizes the characteristics and values of subculture theory of Birmingham School. Besides the full text of Introduction and Conclusion, the body of the dissertation is composed of four parts.The Introduction mainly defines the some key concepts such as Birmingham School, Subculture and Youth so as to outline the subculture theory of Birmingham School Research. Through careful exploration of subculture theory of Birmingham School, the dissertation comes to a conclusion that style theory is the core of the subculture theory of the Birmingham School.Chapter One mainly analyses the cultural context of subculture theory of Birmingham School. This part summarizes the role played by the British cultural-civilization traditions, the New left, the working class adult education after World War II and post-war youth subculture in the form of subculture theory of Birmingham School, and attempts to elaborate the Marxist theory resources, Structuralism and Semiology resources and the Sociology of Deviance resources of Chicago School, generalize its developing process before the establishment of The Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies(CCCS)in Birmingham University and the formation process of subculture theory of Birmingham School by focusing on the theoretical contributions of Stuart Hall.Chapter Two concentrates on the style theory of Birmingham School. Firstly the brief style history of clothing, music, literature of the whole post-war youth subculture such as Teddy boy is defined. Then the bricoldge,homology and signifying practice composing of styles of youth subculture are discussed. The point that the style as the verb is in fact the pursuit of a collective identity is also stressed in this part.Chapter Three mainly explores the decoding mode of the subcultural styles of Birmingham School. Birmingham school has adopted the structural model to analyze subcultures, who think that subcultures are not only the product of the generation gap but also that of class. Youth subculture shares the same cultural experiences and class problems as their parent culture. After World War II, the social fabric of British society, the working class contradictions and the problems of vulnerable groups are not eliminated. Youth subculture is the cultural symbol of resistance in the level of hegemony and domination. Concentrating on the of leisure and educational areas such as Skinheads, Teddy boy, the Kids and Punk, this part examines the reasons of the subculture resistance given by Birmingham School and sums up the limitations of subcultural styles - they are only symbolic resistance and vain to solve any practical problems.Chapter Four analyzes Birmingham School's aesthetic evaluation of the subculture style. This study sums up the aesthetic evaluation of the Birmingham School on the subculture style by putting forward the idea of noise. The whole point is demonstrated from the following aspects such as the interference in the transmission of information, collage (bricoldge) ,ready mades and the relation between artists and audiences. This study argues that subculture style forms a bottom-up tag-of-war of culture.Chapter Five intends to discuss the ways and approaches of incorporation of Birmingham School. The incorporation for the working class youth subculture is developed from two levels: the ideology and commodity. The study means to prove that the media market exerts subversive and integrating influence on the resistance function of the subcultural style. It also means to compliment the negligence of early study made by Birmingham School on the subculture market by invoking the relative research of McRobbie, Thornton and Fiske.The dissertation concludes with the view that Birmingham school take the style of subculture as the core, adhere to the analysis model of social structure, regard the sub-culture as the resistance to the cultural hegemony and domination and project the New Left of a strong sense of political participation. They also put forward a set of value propositions on the sultural style, the incorporation in style and aesthetic evaluation, which greatly help to construct the important cultural resources of subculture.