Can punk rockers remain orthodox when they grow old? Joanna R Davis, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, confronts this painful question in her study Growing Up Punk: Negotiating Ageing Identity in a Local Music Scene, published in the journal Symbolic Interaction.
“Punk developed in both the United Kingdom and the United States as a youth phenomenon associated with rebellion, anarchy and cacophonous fashions,” Davis explains. “Kids might choose or find in punk rock an anti-authoritarian, destructive, or anarchistic ideology that helps them manage the tumult of adolescence. But what happens next?”
Authenticity is the central concept here. Davis interviewed six “authentic” punk rockers who are now well past teenagerhood. She identifies two types of unsuccessful older punks…
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.