Performing Punk

Erik Hannerz

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137485922
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Performing Punk is a rich exploration of subcultural contrasts and similarities among punks. By investigating how punk is made, for whom, and in opposition to what, this book takes the reader on a journey through the lesser-known aspects of the punk subculture.

C h a p t e r 1

Introduction

It is one of my last days in the field, and I am at a punk festival in a middle-sized Swedish town. Together with a few dozen participants, I am standing in the courtyard in front of the entrance to an old industrial building in the outskirts of the city. By now, I am familiar with most of those who are present, some of whom I have followed for years, others I have just talked to once or twice. I move across the yard and into what was once probably an old workshop and is now turned into a subcultural venue. This subcultural redecoration has been accomplished by ingeniously making use of scrap metal, pallets, barrels, and leftover building material and transforming these into a stage, furniture, and a bar area. It has been a pragmatic change; that which was deemed as an obstruction has been removed; that which was lacking has been erected so as to, for example, separate the bar and lounge from the concert area; and that which has been left is decorated by slogans, stickers, and graffiti. A variety of chairs, tables, and couches has been amassed from second-hand shops, dumpsters, and participants’ homes and have been placed in a proper mishmash of epochs, materials, conditions, and colors.

The participants present project a similar miscellaneous constellation. Whereas black, brown, and gray are the dominating colors, here, there, and everywhere a red shirt, a pink singlet, a green mohawk, or a yellow t-shirt stands out like flowers pushing their way through asphalt. Participants wear leather jackets, sports jackets, jean jackets, flannel shirts, or hooded sweatshirts. Some of them are adorned with political slogans, band logos, and studs, on others the political has been left out for profanities, still others are clean with no adornments whatsoever. I can see t-shirts with punk, metal, rock, and hip-hop bands as well as skate logos, vests, and cardigans. The predominate hairstyle is the absence of a hairstyle, unkempt hair at times hidden under a cap or a hood, but there is also long hair, short hair, ponytails, dreadlocks, one or two mohawks, a few spikes, and a lot of shaved heads. There is an excess of tight black jeans, but also skirts, shorts, hot pants, sweatpants, as well as workman pants. I spot sneakers, boots, scarves, a few ties, and at least one fake boa. The youngest participants are in their early teens while the oldest are in their late thirties, about a third of them are female.

There is variety in terms of behavior as well; whereas some participants are thrashing in front of the stage, throwing themselves from the stage and singing along to the band, others are in the background watching in silence, while others are not even in the vicinity of the stage. This does of course change with the bands, but also with who is involved. When those thrashing leave their spot on one occasion, others move into their place, discouraging and hindering people from thrashing, and watching the bands in silence.

During my years in the field, I participated in numerous discussions with the participants present; hence I am aware of a more significant variation among these participants that is not as manifest, or physical. This regards how punk is defined, and more importantly in terms of what it should be and what it is supposed to be separated from. This is one of the reasons why this particular night is so interesting, as so many different definitions of punk are in the same place at the same time. They move around each other, chat, share the same space even though many participants here despise other participants present for the kind of punk they represent. While some of the participants here think that everyone here is punk, others are harsher in their distinctions, separating between the fake and authentic—a tacit separation that often goes unnoticed by those it is aimed at. For some of those present punk is and should be political, while others think politics is restricting and boring, and there are those who ironically mock the rules against sexism, racism, and homophobia stated on the wall left of the entrance to the venue. Here are vegan punks who do not drink and who despise the meat-eating punks and the fake vegetarian drunk punks. Yet there are also vegan-friendly nonvegans, as well as meat-eating punks who berate vegans and vegetarians. In this very room there are punks who have sold thousands of records, some of who have participated in national media, others here refuse anything that has a bar code and call the former sellouts and only distribute their records within punk, but there are also those who do not care about such a distinction.

By now I am quite at ease with this diversity. I have encountered it on numerous occasions before, here and in other parts of Sweden as well as when I was in Indonesia. But what separates this night from all of the others is that as I am moving across the venue talking to participants, for the first time I feel assured that I can explain this diversity as well as the similarities across differences in style, meaning, and action (Field notes, Sweden, June 2011).

During the time I have researched punk, the most common response from people when I tell them what I am writing about has been: “Punk? But that died in the 1980s.” Such remarks follow from a mediated stereotype of punks as being the safety pin-adorned, studded leather jacket-clad youth, sporting a mohawk or liberty spikes. When I answer to such remarks by saying that punk is still alive as a subculture, and has been for the last 40 years, and that there are now punks in most parts of the world, including a variety of punk styles, the second response follows from the first: “Yeah, but that’s not real punk; real punk was 1977.”

In a sense, this book is my answer to such a simplified definition of both punk and the subcultural authentic. I aim to empirically and theoretically account for subcultural plurality: how patterned sets of meanings have as their consequence a diversity in styles and identification, and how participants work the boundaries so as to define and protect what is deemed as sacred and central to participants’ lives, communicated, experienced, and interpreted through cultural structures based on differences and similarities. As such, this book is also an exploration of how subcultural authenticity is differently worked with different consequences for how style, identities, action, and space are claimed and validated by punks in nine different cities in two countries—Sweden and Indonesia. The focus of this book, thus, is not so much the objects of style, as the patterns of meanings through which objects are mediated and provided with a particular meaning. It centers on the simple question of asking how and in opposition to what is punk defined and lived out by punks in Sweden and Indonesia.

Varieties in Punk

Taken separately, the previous attempts to cover how and in opposition to what punk is defined and lived out appear somewhat straightforward and simple. Each one of them paints a rather uncomplicated image of style and identities ordered through a subcultural set of meanings based on the opposition to the mainstream. A claim that is pretty much in line with Hebdige’s (1979:102) classic claim that punk style goes against the grain of a mainstream culture.

Still, when all of these previous accounts on what punk is and should be are taken together, the result is a rather complicated image, pointing to contradicting meanings. While there are a number of studies pointing to authentic punk as the stylistic rebellion against the conventional and normal—a stepping out from societal goals and values through clothes, appearances, and behavior (cf. Fox 1987, Leblanc 1999, Davis 2006)—others point to punk representing an elaborate opposition to the corporate music industry’s and the fashion retail’s exploitation of punk—authentic punk involving the shedding of traditional punk style and the label punk (cf. Clarke 2003, Gosling 2004, O’Connor 2008). Similarly, whereas some researchers have pointed to authentic punk as publicly resisting and taking on the dominant culture in the streets (cf. Lull 1987, Baron 1989b, Leblanc 1999), others describe authentic punk as a withdrawal from the streets to the outskirts of towns and establishing an autonomous space (cf. Culton and Holtzman 2010, Cisar and Koubek 2012, Glass 2012). Further, even the straightforward claim that authentic punk attempts to subvert mainstream values and rules through radical style is complicated by a plurality in terms of the meaning of the radical—defined at times as the conspicuous and style-centered (Fox 1987), but also as a self-actualization that includes an apolitical and pragmatic way of thinking (Muggleton 2000), or as a collective political struggle for freedom from corporate interests (cf. Holt 2007, Roberts and Moore 2009). In line with this, subcultural authenticity has been said to be ascribed—as in the working class resistance against the dominant culture (Clarke et al. 1976)—achieved—through a stylistic resistance and separation from a dominant other (Leblanc 1999)—or constructed—as in drawing self-stigmatizing boundaries through the appropriation and celebration of the poor, dirty, and stigmatized inner-city underclass (Traber 2001). In addition, the postmodern subcultural theorists argue that subcultural authenticity is a product of subcultural theories focused on resistance (cf. Redhead 1990, Widdicombe and Wooffitt 1995). As Muggleton (2002:2) has pointed out, punk then becomes “what you make of it”; subcultural authenticity being a matter of being yourself and who you really are (cf. Lewin and Williams 2009).

This gets even more complicated when addressing how varieties in style and meaning has been described and explained. When punk is defined as the resistance and separation from the dominant other, authenticity equals rebellion, giving up school, employment, and conventional housing, and any variety in how punks dress, express themselves, or act, is explained as part of a subcultural stratification based on commitment (Fox 1987, Lull 1987, Davis 2006). Or, variety among participants is theorized as representing subcultural development, with differences in style and meaning referring to different steps on a single ladder pointing in a certain direction (Andes 1998, Leblanc 1999). More so, following Clarke’s (1976b) idea of subcultural defusion and diffusion, heterogeneities in punk style and meaning have also been ordered according to a temporal distinction between those who are the innovators of style, and those attracted to the subcultural through the media diffusion of the style and defusion of the meaning. Hebdige’s (1979:122) distinction between the “originals” and the “hangers-on” is but one example of this, with the more recent theorists referring to punks reclaiming an authentic meaning and resistance by distancing themselves from parts of punk that have been incorporated in the mainstream (Clarke 2003, Gosling 2004, O’Connor 2008). In relation to such a claim, punk varieties have also been ordered in terms of the real and fake on the basis of maintaining an authentic core established in relation to existing socioeconomic structures, measured either in terms of participants’ class background (Hebdige 1979, Fox 1987, Wallach 2005) or by their distance and autonomy from the commercial mainstream (Lull 1987, Huxley 1999, Gosling 2004, Holt 2007, Moore 2007, Roberts and Moore 2009). The final explanation for varieties in punk style and identification refers to dealing with authenticity as being tied to a genuine self, any heterogeneity can then be attributed to individual strategies and the stress on reflections of the self (Widdicombe and Wooffitt 1995, Muggleton 2000, Lewin and Williams 2009).

My point here, and in line with the intent of this book, is not that these differences in how punk is defined indicate that the previous research is wrong, rather I intend to prove most of them right: that they all point to different aspects of a subcultural plurality in terms of meaning.

Punk in Sweden and Indonesia

The empirical cases in this book, punk in Sweden and Indonesia, serves to illustrate the point of investigating subcultural similarities through exploring differences, rather than ordering differences through an a priori assumed similarity. Punk’s continual presence in contemporary society and its global character are in themselves good reasons for writing this book. Even though punk outside of the Anglo-American context has been explored (cf. O’Connor 2002, 2004) focus has been on globalization of style and localization of meaning. When punk in the Western hemisphere is investigated, little if any focus is directed toward factors beyond the local conditions. When moving beyond the Western sphere, however, punk is suddenly addressed as a global phenomenon. Whereas Anglo-American punk stands by itself, punk in Eastern Europe, Mexico, and Indonesia is defined through the former (cf. Szemere 1992, Baulch 2003b, Wallach 2008). Still, punk remains global merely in an initial state. Whereas style is authenticated in relation to an “original” Western punk style, what punk signifies is said to be due to local factors. Punk beyond the Western hemisphere is thus at the same time something imported and something locally framed (Wallach 2008:109, cf. Pilkington 1994:228).

This brings about another important question in relation to how and in opposition to what punk is defined and lived out: if differences and similarities in what punk signifies are indeed related to a reaction to socioeconomic structures or to resistance to the dominant culture, then this would be rather obvious in comparing punk in Indonesia and Sweden. Sweden and Indonesia are, in nearly every sense of the phrase, worlds apart. Whereas Sweden is urban, ethnically homogeneous, and predominantly Lutheran, Indonesia is rural and ethnically diverse and has a Muslim majority. More so, Sweden is a stable democracy and recognized as one of the world’s most advanced social welfare systems, while Indonesia’s modern history is scarred by authoritarian rule, internal conflicts, corruption, and poverty (Hefner 2000). There are also significant differences between the two countries in GDP per head, Internet access, and access to higher education (EIU 2013).

Finally, there is an important difference in relation to punk. While punk in Sweden was firmly established in the late 1970s (cf. Carlsson et al. 2004, Jandreus 2008), Indonesian punk did not develop until the 1990s through the arrival of music television and international bands that toured the country (Pickles 2001, Baulch 2003b).

All in all, following from the previous research on punk and subcultural theory, how punk is defined and lived out by punks in Sweden and Indonesia would have to be different. If, however, punk is similarly structured and performed in the two countries, this would call for a refinement of subcultural establishment, reproduction, and change, as well as patterned differences, pushing subcultural meaning as being relatively autonomous in relation to a local social base. I will discuss this further in chapter 2.

Punk Participants

Given the aim of this study to empirically and theoretically account for subcultural plurality, the answer to how and in opposition to what punk is defined and lived out by punks in Sweden and Indonesia, must involve exploring varieties: investigating both how style and meaning differ within the subcultural, but also how such differences relate to each other. Instead of focusing on one particular kind of punk, or one particular context, as has been the predominant strategy for the previous research, I have chosen the opposite path, seeking to include and explore the variation of punk meanings and styles, asking, what consequences does such a variety have for how punk styles and identities are performed and authenticated?

In so doing, I want to start by defining what I mean by referring to someone as a punk or a subcultural participant throughout this book. Whereas recent research on punk has often revolved around the researcher’s insider status and direct access to the field (Bennett 2003, Hodkinson 2005, MacRae 2007), I have sought to constantly challenge my own categorizations; reflecting upon who is excluded, who have I not talked to yet, what questions have I not asked, where have I not gone, and so on (cf. Charmaz and Mitchell 2001). One of the ways to do so was to make use of the proclaimed self-definitions of those I followed to make this distinction, rather than determining who is in and out based on my own subcultural knowledge (cf. Leblanc 1999:25f, Muggleton 2000:171). Accordingly, when I refer to a subcultural participant that means that the person in question self-identifies as being punk to other participants. The second part of this definition is important, as it refers to a claim of belonging that can be validated, refuted, or ignored by other participants. The point here is that subcultural identities, similar to subcultural objects, involve the positioning of the participant in relation to other participants within a subcultural structure of meaning. Hence, being a subcultural participant is to be able to answer what makes you into one (Barth 1969:15).

I am aware of the possible critique that I have excluded participants who do not self-identify as punks yet who frequent shows and participate in discussions on music and style. The reason for this is simple: if they do not self-identify as punks to other participants they will not be judged by the same rules, and they will not play by them either. Further, an inclusion of these would render me the arbiter of who is or who is not a punk, regardless of what the participants themselves think.

Another possible criticism is whether I can be sure that these people were not lying to me—perhaps they did self-identify as punk, yet would not say it to me. Such a concealment of identity was actually quite common among several of the groups of participants that I followed. These participants would rarely identify themselves as punks to someone they did not recognize as part of their group. Two things are worth noting in reference to this. First, I followed the majority of participants in this study for months, in many cases even for years. I did not just walk up to a random person asking them if they were punks. Instead, I hung around at shows and parties, and participated in and listened to discussions. This means that such concealment would have to have been both elaborate and persistent over time. Second, what mattered was if they self-identified as punks to other participants, not to me. This is also what separates this definition from previous subcultural studies’ emphasis on self-identification (Widdicombe and Wooffitt 1995, Leblanc 1999, Hodkinson 2002, Haenfler 2006), as focus has been on the claims and authentications of identities in relation to the subcultural, rather than to me.

The definition of punk, both as a noun and adjective, upon which this study relies is thus not so much a matter of “what you make of it” but rather of how punk is made, for whom, and in opposition to what.

Exploring Differences

This book relies on extensive fieldwork among punks in nine different cities—five in Sweden and four in Indonesia—that stretches from 2003 to 2010. This fieldwork was in turn divided into parts: I first spent twelve months in the field in Sweden, and five months in Indonesia, between 2003 and 2005; thereafter between 2005 and 2007 I conducted fieldwork mostly on weekends and during the summer months; the most extensive period in the field was between 2007 and 2010 in which I spent almost 20 months in the field in Sweden. During 2011 and 2012, I also made occasional returns to the field.

In the field I have stayed with participants during days and nights, at times even sleeping on their couches or floors, at other times returning home in the early mornings. I have accompanied them to shows, to work, and in a number of cases to see their families. I have tagged along to demonstrations and meetings, squats and festivals, record stores and supermarkets, and I have followed them while they were setting up shows and rehearsing with their bands, in some cases even going on tour with them. All of which was driven by the simple question of “what is going on?” (Goffman 1986:85). I have observed and taken notes on the social processes taking place, addressing how they were ordered and made meaningful, but also what and w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1.  Introduction
• 2.  The Subcultural, the Mainstream, and the Authentic
• 3.  Being Different: A Convex Subcultural Pattern
• 4.  Becoming Free
• 5.  Remaining Free and Different
• 6.  Becoming Different: A Concave Subcultural Pattern
• 7.  Collective Freedom
• 8.  Doing It Ourselves
• 9.  The Spatial Performance of Punk
• 10.  Structuring the Subcultural
• 11.  Subcultural Inclusion and Exclusion
• 12.  Conclusion
• References
• Index