6.5 Conclusion
Let us return to riot grrrl. How can we understand it given what we have discussed in this chapter? It should now be clear that it is a subculture, with its own unique set of symbols, cultural objects, norms, values, style, and habits that challenged dominant American culture. The subculture developed a cultural toolkit combining feminism with punk rock. To some extent mainstream media othered and drew symbolic boundaries against the people associated with the subculture. However, some scholars have expressed concerns that riot grrrl engaged in some boundary drawing of its own, particularly in regards to race and sexuality. With the focus of the subculture mainly on the concerns of cis-gender, middle class women even though the subculture aspired to be inclusive of people of color and combat classism (Perry 2015). Overall, riot grrrl subculture shows the importance of resistance and incorporating cultural objects and ideas that might be seen as controversial to the dominant culture. By challenging dominant culture they made it easier for others to follow in their footsteps.
6.5.1 Review of Learning Objectives
In this chapter we explored how the social sciences approach the study of culture and how the approach differs from the humanities approach. We then discussed what makes up culture, specifically focusing on symbolic and material culture, values and norms, cultural toolkits and subcultures. We ended the chapter by examining how culture can be connected to the creation of inequalities. We specifically focused on cultural capital, taste patterns, boundary drawing, and othering.
6.5.2 Key Terms
Argot: the special vocabulary and language of a subculture and how it’s delivered.
Cultural capital: the resources and power derived from being familiar with high (or legitimated) culture.
Cultural diamond: a framework for understanding culture that focuses on specific cultural objects, how they are created and received, and the embeddedness of these patterns within society.
Cultural objects: Socially meaningful expressions that tell a story.
Cultural omnivore: someone that appreciates a wide range of cultural activities and genres. Often associated with eliteness.
Cultural Relativism: the view that a culture can only be understood and judged by the standards, behaviors, norms, and values within the culture and not by anything outside.
Cultural toolkit: a repertoire of symbols and meanings that allows people to carry out social action.
Cultural univore: someone that appreciates a narrow range of cultural activities and genres.
Declarative culture: culture that is verbally expressed.
Dominant culture: the values, norms, meanings and practices of the group within society that is the most powerful.
Ethnocentrism: tendency to view your own society or culture as superior and the standard by which other societies and cultures are judged.
Folkways: loosely enforced norms, ordinary conventions of everyday life.
Gestures: signs that people make with their body.
High culture: forms of cultural expression associated with elite groups.
Homology argument: the argument that consumption patterns and cultural tastes are associated with specific occupations and class fractions.
Individualization argument: the argument that consumption patterns are no longer determined by class.
Language: a system of communication using vocal sounds, gestures, and written symbols.
Material culture: anything physical or tangible that people create, use, or appreciate that has a meaning attached to it.
Mores: norms that carry moral significance, we are expected to conform to them.
Nondeclarative culture: deeply internalized and unconscious culture.
Norms: the social expectations of how to behave in a situation.
Othering: the process where a powerful group, defines into existence a group they construct as an “other”. The powerful group does this by attributing negative characteristics to the “other” and deems the less powerful group as inferior
Popular culture: widely accessible and commonly shared aspects of culture consumed by all classes, but typically associated with lower and middle classes.
Subculture: a group within society that is differentiated by its distinctive values, norms, and lifestyle.
Symbolic boundaries: conceptual distinctions made by people to categorize social things.
Symbolic culture: ways of thinking, beliefs, values and assumptions.
Taboos: the most powerful type of norm.
Taste culture: areas of culture that share aesthetics and standards of beauty.
Values: shared beliefs about what a group considers worthwhile or desirable.
Value orientations: systems of linked values.
6.5.3 Discussion Questions
- Pick a cultural object. How might you analyze it in terms of the cultural diamond? How do you think the social world influenced its creation and reception?
- How can our culture influence what we taste, hear, and smell?
- Make a list of what you think are core American values. Do you think other societies may have similar values? Why or why not? Is America exceptional?
- How closely do you think social class is tied to taste patterns? Which argument about taste patterns did you find most convincing? Why?
- What type of symbolic boundaries do those in your community draw? Who is typically included? Who is excluded?
- What are other examples of othering? How can you challenge this process?
6.5.4 Licenses and Attributions for Conclusion
“Conclusion” by Matthew Gougherty is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
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