Youth cultures and subcultures and violence
Introduction
In the previous decades, the analysis of youth cultures and subcultures could be defined as more static and predictable, currently with the changes that occurred in youth as a vital stage, the transformations of a more individualistic and consumerist society, the emergence of technologiesof information and communication (ICTs), new leisure forms, etc., They have given rise to new forms of sociability and ways to create and transmit different collective identities.
The world of youth is in a complex scenario that, in previous decades, precarious its situation with high unemployment rates, dependence on the family nucleus, social promises breached in relation to the training and socio -labor insertion, which is causing a growing distrust distrustof young women towards the same social system.
Leisure and lifestyles are two fundamental aspects that influence the formation of cultures and subcultures, especially in the case of music as well as identities generator and as the central element of them, especially from the second half of the twentieth century,With the birth of Rock & Roll, a turning point without a doubt. Youth is characterized by its diversity and heterogeneity. Especially in a context like the current one, in which collective identities are no longer so monolithic, but are characterized by a diversity of influences and elements that make them up.
One of the most important elements to analyze youth cultures and subcultures, and their relationship with antisocial or violent behaviors, is to what extent these cultures and subcultures are currently against said order. That is, if they have lost strength in their more vindictive or even countercultural dimension, and have delegated violence as a form of expression.
In short, youth cultures and subcultures have become part of the landscape of our societies, and represent expressions of a part of a group like that of young people. Because from Rockers, Mods, Punks, Heavies, Metalleros, Emos, Hiphoperos, Latin Bands to Skaters, Gamers, even soccer ultras, etc., They are a sociological fact with multiple dimensions.
Youth cultures and subcultures
To analyze the relationship between youth cultures and subcultures with antisocial behaviors, violence and criminal acts it is necessary to initially leave
of the definition of these concepts. In the first place, for Feixa "youth cultures refer to the way in which the social experiences of young people are collectively expressed through the construction of distinctive lifestyles, mainly located in free time or in interstitial spaces of institutional life". For their part, Rubio Gil and San Martín Pascual would indicate that "subculture is a partitable term, not pejorative, and each subculture implies a belonging to another global culture, but that as a complex microsystem you can be studied each one, through itself"
Two concepts that affect the collective aspect, highlighting as a form of expression, and with special incidence of free time and leisure in the case of youth cultures. Each subculture shares an ideology, as a way of understanding society and its conflicts, based on its existence and as a philosophy of life: a position against sexual, economic or ethnic difference, which is thought of the authorities, which value give itTo health, socio -political participation, violence, sexual relations, etc.
This aspect is fundamental in periods such as adolescence and youth, when primary socialization can be questioned and enter into collision with other models: “At this age the sense of belonging to the group is more present than it had ever been and probablyWhat will be. By sense of belonging to the group we understand the security that the individual has to be accepted and be part of a group, as well as society in general ”.
The young women seek in these groups a source of recognition and a position in the world, which they do not find in which society reserves them: “The young man of today, waits for their parents to help him glimpse his futureAs an adult, and while waiting for something to change, he acquires a lifestyle, which only consists of culturally distancing from a society that young people have not manufactured ”
Youth as such accumulates a feeling of social discrimination, even exclusion. The difficulties they have to articulate a life project has already been pointed out, which generates a feeling of frustration that can be expressed or channeled through being part of a subculture, which results in acceptance by the group, to theShare an identity, to mutual support … Therefore, you should not neglect how youth perceives its situation in the social structure. And it is a stage marked by insecurity, by the desire to make its own decisions in a context that does not allow it, for assuming control. The group, in that sense, is fundamental because it shares its problems and desires, thus reinforcing its own story. Within that group, in addition, the forms of rebellion can be expressed and channeled.
ICTs are going to play a central role in the life of youth, authentic digital native, visual communication and social networks -based relationships. In this way, they will also acquire an important value for socialization and determine the forms of leisure and the use of free time: “television fiction and video games consumed by young people have a subcultural character and point to some of the distinctions between stageYouth and adult stage ". In this sense, we can talk about new youth subcultures, for example, gamers and their link with video games.
One of the youth cultures that have acquired a special visibility in the last two decades have been the "bands" constituted by young Latin Americans arriving with immigration, where globalization and rapid transmission of information online. They are groups in which the territorial dimension is thus determining as the affective dimension that it contributes to its members: the term ‘band’ becomes a paradigm of new forms of youth sociability, applying from this moment only to young people of migrant origin and limiting itself inMost cases to its criminal aspect, while the term ‘urban tribes’ identifies only with native young people, becomes something linked to fashion or disappears. It is interesting to observe how the arrival of these bands was a stigmatization of various groups and a characterization of certain youth subcultures, linked to a series of stereotypes in which violence was present by certain behaviors of some of its members. It is also important to point out the transformations of identities that "arise in a border territory where, in addition to the hegemonic culture and parental cultures, several subcultural traditions converge".
Youth violence and antisocial behaviors: topics, common places and realities
First, it is necessary to point out that there are much less crimes committed by youth, of the image that is transmitted from certain agencies. This identification and media amplification of certain behaviors, especially those that involve the use of violence, will affect certain youth subcultures, linking them with issues such as drugs and urban violence itself.
There are some behaviors that are associated with youth derived from impulsivity and constant search for novelties, which would imply a low reflexivity in decision -making. Likewise, youth is also associated with aspects such as emotionality, simplicity or stability, which are linked to the "primitive". In this area, issues such as drug use, in the moments of leisure or not, which are related to violent and/or criminal behaviors, increasing the probability of such behavior. We must not forget that drug use among young people, largely linked to recreational leisure, remains an object of fundamental study from different areas.
At this point we must also differentiate antisocial behaviors and crimes, although not all can be considered as violent, since most of the youth would have committed one of the first (consuming alcohol, illegal use of the computer, etc.), while a reduced minority would have committed crimes as violent behaviors or against property. Within antisocial behaviors, alcohol consumption in the case of minors are included, socially relativized when not accepted. The crimes or antisocial behaviors committed by young women are determined by a high diversity of factors, both individual and social, entering within the latter membership in the latter.
There is no doubt that this youth violence, those antisocial behaviors, can be marked by the feeling of frustration in young women, by the generational confrontation, being able to channel towards the system through the affiliation to groups they useRitual violence such as soccer ultras or some street bands. In fact, violent behaviors are usually part of rites of initiation of these groups, even a planning of encounters, battles, etc.
In relation to the exercise of violence by youth cultures and subcultures, it is important to review the confrontation between different groups, producing territorial and symbolic competence. And although in the past the clashes between urban tribes could be more frequent, Rockers in front of Mods for example, currently that violence between groups is more among football ultras and those characterized by political extremism.
Cybercriminality is an important and recent phenomenon, in which young women are a high vulnerability group, in an environment in which these digital natives are more socialized. Issues related to aspects such as illegal downloads, intellectual property, etc., They charge increasing visibility. But one of the aspects in which the debatible relationship between video games and violence has been affected in relation to ICTs, there are studies that do not find linking. Another important element is the influence of the media and
of the Internet as agents of socialization and transmission of certain behavior models and that, in that sense, “violence itself has become a spectacular merchandise that is eagerly consumed in movies, television series, reality shows, etc., available to children who perceive scenes and facts without having the degree of personal maturation essential to adequately digest these situations ”.
One of the phenomena related to the clearest youth violence is bullying, which has acquired significant social relevance, thus as new dimensions with cyberbullying, and whose consequences are very serious. However, the link between bullying and youth cultures and subcultures should be specified, which could be present in discrimination towards some groups for its difference from the rest, due to its aesthetics, etc.
It is also noteworthy that many of these acts are punctual and that "in some young people, crime is something transitory, used to attract attention in the absence of self-control, while, for others, it becomes a norm of life". They are a minority and that, in most of them, it is the group that functions as a shield of these behaviors, which would not be a few occasions part of a ritual, a fact that seems to stay in cases like the soccer ultras. It should be noted that, in most situations, these forms of violence are given in a group, either in clashes with other groups, aggressions, etc.
There are cultures and subcultures that are more linked to rebellion and questioning of order, which does not mean that they must necessarily derive from antisocial or violent behaviors. However, it is true that this deviation of conventional social norms is used as a means to stigmatize young people and generalize behaviors that are specific and isolated, giving rise to panic and social alarm situations.
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