Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles

The concept of everyday struggles can enliven our understanding of the lives of young people and how social class is made and remade. This book invokes a Bourdieusian spirit to think about the ways young people are pushed and pulled by the normative demands directed at them from an early age, whilst they reflexively understand that allegedly available incentives for making the 'right' choices and working hard - financial and familial security, social status and job satisfaction - are a declining prospect. In Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles, the figures of those classed as 'hipsters' and 'bogans' are used to analyse how representation works to form a symbolic and moral economy that produces and polices fuzzy class boundaries. Further to this, the practices of young people around DIY cultures are analysed to illustrate struggles to create a satisfying and meaningful existence while negotiating between study, work and creative passions. By thinking through different modalities of struggles, which revolve around meaning making and identity, creativity and authenticity, Threadgold brings Bourdieu's sociological practice together with theories of affect, emotion, morals and values to broaden our understanding of how young people make choices, adapt, strategise, succeed, fail and make do. Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, of fields including: Youth Studies, Class and Inequality, Work and Careers, Subcultures, Media and Creative Industries, Social Theory and Bourdieusian Theory.

Steven Threadgold is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Part 1: Youth studies and theoretical foundations A mix tape for Part 1 1. Youth, class and everyday struggles Introduction Youth Class Bourdieu's 'struggles' Chapter outline 2. Sociological practice: Towards a Bourdieusian understanding Introduction: Bourdieu's thinking tools Bourdieu's conception of class Struggle, illusio and social gravity Social games and strategy Habitus and field Capitals Trajectory Doxa and misrecognition Symbolic violence Cultural arbitrary Distinction Conclusion 3. Bourdieusian prospects and theory in youth studies Introduction Reflexivity and inequality The symbolic, the moral and 'value' Affect and emotion Conclusion Part 2: Classification struggles in the field of representation A mix tape for Part 2 4. Hipsters and bogans: Distinctive figures of classed anxieties Introduction Hipsters and bogans in the news Slippery categories What is a bogan? What is a hipster? Hipsters and bogans as 'figures' Classification struggles in the field of representation Conclusion 5. Hipsters and bogans in the news media and comedy: Two case studies Introduction Case study 1 Case study 2 The affective economy of hipsters and bogans Conclusion: Global hipsters and local bogans Part 3: DIY cultures: Struggles about creativity, identity and meaningful work A mix tape for Part 3 6. A DIY scene: Cultural struggles and meaning making Introduction 'DIY': From punk to sociology to co-optation and beyond Everyday struggles in a DIY music scene in Australia Conclusion 7. A DIY career? Labour and creativity struggles Introduction Class, labour and creativity DIY cultures to DIY careers Subcultural capital and illusio Choice, struggle and making do: Strategic poverty? Conclusion 8. Coda: Hipsters, bogans and class in the DIY scene 9. Conclusion Introduction Modalities of everyday struggle Bourdieu, affect and reflexivity Youth, modalities of struggle and the 'future'