Subcultures, Bodies and Spaces ― Essays on Alternativity and Maginalization

Alternativity delineates those spaces, scenes, club-cultures, objects and practices in modern society that are considered to be actively designed to be counter or resistive to mainstream popular culture. The idea of the alternative in popular culture became mainstream with the rise of the counter culture in 1960s America (though there were earlier forms of alternative cultures in America and other Western countries). Alternativity is associated with marginalization, both actively pursued by individuals, and imposed on individuals and sub-cultures, and was originally represented and constructed through acts of transgression, and through shared sub-cultural capital.

This edited collection maps the landscape of alternativity and marginalization, providing new theory and methods in a currently under-theorized area, setting out the issues, questions, concerns and directions of this area of study. It demonstrates the theoretical richness and empirical diversity of the interdisciplinary field it encompasses, and is deliberately feminist in its approach and its composition, with a majority of the contributors being women. Divided into three sub-sections, focused on sub-cultures, bodies and spaces, contributors explore this exciting new terrain, both through critiques of theory and new theoretical developments, and case studies of alternativity and marginalization in practice and in performance, expanding our understanding of the alternative, the liminal and the transgressive.

Samantha Holland is Senior Research Fellow at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her research focuses on gender, leisure, subcultures, popular culture, ageing and homes. She is the author of Alternative Femininities, Pole Dancing, Empowerment & Embodiment and Modern Vintage Home & Leisure Lives: Ghosts & Glamour. She is series editor of Emerald Studies in Popular Culture & Gender, and series co-editor (with Karl Spracklen) of Emerald Studies in Alternativity & Marginalisation.

Karl Spracklen is Professor of Music, Leisure and Culture at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He is the Editor of the journal Metal Music Studies, as well as International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure. He is interested in leisure and identity, and has published over a hundred papers, books, textbooks and book chapters in that broad area. His most recent work has been focused on music, alternativity, hegemony and transgression.