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 foundationsA mix tape for Part 11. Youth, class and everyday strugglesIntroductionYouthClassBourdieu's 'struggles'Chapter outline2. Sociological practice: Towards a Bourdieusian understandingIntroduction: Bourdieu's thinking toolsBourdieu's conception of class Struggle, illusio and social gravitySocial games and strategy Habitus and fieldCapitalsTrajectoryDoxa and misrecognitionSymbolic violenceCultural arbitraryDistinctionConclusion 3. Bourdieusian prospects and theory in youth studiesIntroductionReflexivity and inequalityThe symbolic, the moral and 'value'Affect and emotionConclusion Part 2: Classification struggles in the field of representationA mix tape for Part 24. Hipsters and bogans: Distinctive figures of classed anxietiesIntroductionHipsters and bogans in the newsSlippery categoriesWhat is a bogan? What is a hipster?Hipsters and bogans as 'figures'Classification struggles in the field of representationConclusion5. Hipsters and bogans in the news media and comedy: Two case studiesIntroductionCase study 1Case study 2The affective economy of hipsters and bogansConclusion: Global hipsters and local bogansPart 3: DIY cultures: Struggles about creativity, identity and meaningful workA mix tape for Part 36. A DIY scene: Cultural struggles and meaning makingIntroduction'DIY': From punk to sociology to co-optation and beyondEveryday struggles in a DIY music scene in AustraliaConclusion7. A DIY career? Labour and creativity strugglesIntroductionClass, labour and creativityDIY cultures to DIY careersSubcultural capital and illusioChoice, struggle and making do: Strategic poverty?Conclusion8. Coda: Hipsters, bogans and class in the DIY scene 9. Conclusion IntroductionModalities of everyday struggleBourdieu, affect and reflexivityYouth, modalities of struggle and the 'future'