Dr Vlad Nicu

     Within the past forty years, the field of cultural sociology has been marked by a theoretical clash between modern and postmodern views on how oppositionality and resistance can take shape inside non-normative youth groups called subcultures. In line with the wider goal of enriching subcultural theory through overcoming this conflict, my thesis consisted of an in-depth examination of the way in which young members of the contemporary punk and electronic music communities of Bucharest articulate and express subcultural resistance through their music-centred narratives and practices.

     Using extracts from 27 qualitative, semi-structured interviews and field notes from 22 participant observation sessions collected in situ between March and October of 2018, the study argued that these young people construct complex, multi-dimensional, and multi-faceted systems of resistance which encompass two distinct, interdependent levels – discursive and practical. In this context, it also argued that the coexistence and complementarity of a set of diverse and conscious articulations of disaffection support the case for the subversive potential of music and music-mediated social interaction.

     The contributions of the thesis to the sociology of youth culture are both empirical and theoretical. From an empirical point of view, it offers insights into a previously unexplored socio-geographical and cultural space whose unique evolution calls for more nuanced and context-sensitive analyses of how resistance is reified and what its functions are. On a theoretical level, it introduces a new model of resistance based on the specificity of the targets being resisted by subcultural participants. It proposes a novel framework for studying resistance – one that integrates the innovations of both the modern and postmodern schools of thought, and points to the possibility of formulating a more unified and comprehensive type of subcultural theory.