Post-subcultures in Post-socialism: Transnational and Local Contexts of Czech Youth Music Subcultures

The text focuses on definitions of subcultures and presents important approaches to study youth music subcultures – the Birmingham school and post-subcultural theories. The author debates the possibilities of applying these approches in post-socialism and address post-socialist features of the Czech subcultures. In particular, the author argues that there is a strong ethos of individualism, which resonates with the liberal and  neo-liberal values that became dominant in the 1990s. This consequently causes the reluctance to classify subcultures through class (which differs from Western European subcultural patterns) and the higher emphasis on consumption and distance from poli­tics as such, although there are segments within the subculture that can be considered political. At the same time, however, she points out that the emphasis on self-expression, individual au­tonomy, and cultural diversity is in fact entirely consistent with the findings of post-subcultural authors who claim that these values also appear in Western European subcultures. Therefore, this is not unique to post-socialism, it only means post-socialist reality can reinforce it.