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Fischer Subculture

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Published in: Sociology
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Compositional & Cultural Theories: Network Analysis and theories of subculture

Roshan R / Hyderabad

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Qualification: B.A (University of Hyderabad - 2017)

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  1. City - Compositional & Cultural Theories: Network Analysis and theories of subculture Claude Fischer made a contribution to the theory of urbanism through his attention to the emergence of subcultures. He argues that critical mass (number) in cities have independent effects in fostering 'subcultures' . The emergence of subcultures fosters the further creation of more subcultures. In other words, greater size and density creates more heterogeneity. Fischer downplays the effect of anomie and sees the city and its subcultures as a vital force for the amplifying of cultural experience and human creativity. Subcultures mark the emancipation of the individual from traditional controls and conventions while providing a new set of subgroup identities and communities. In this way, they counterbalance some of the alienation and normlessness, the spiritual anxieties and social disorders found in our cities and marketplaces, resulting from the breakdown of traditional customs and primary relationships. Subcultures are seen as a means of defying and criticizing the established cultural dominance. The form can be music- rap, punk, baul music in India. The subcultural theory contends that urbanism independently affects social life—not by destroying social groups as the determinist view of the ecological school suggest, but instead by helping to create and strengthen them. It creates new social groups. The most significant social consequence of community size is the proportion of diverse subcultures. Like compositional theory, the subcultural theory maintains that intimate social circles persist in the urban environment. But, like the ecological theory it maintains that ecological factors do produce significant effects in the social orders of communities, precisely by supporting the emergence and vitality of distinctive subcultures—interact with those with relatively distinct set of beliefs and behaviours. Workers form occupational subcultures and they are further divided according to ethnicity and neighbourhood. Unlike compositionalists the theorists of subculture maintain that number is important since increasing scale on the rural-to-urban continuum creates new sub-cultures, modifies existing ones and brings them into unique consequences including the production of deviance but not because it destroys social worlds but because it creates them. What was so far considered as deviance finds a voice (representation) in the metropolitan subcultural framework. For example, the gay rights movements have been staged in the metropolitan context. But, why is size so important? First of all, large communities attract migrants from wider areas. Secondly, large size produces the structural differentiation and occupational specialization, the rise of specialized institutions and of special interest groups. To each of these structural units are usually attached subcultures—police, doctors, students, people with certain political interest or hobbies in common. It could be said that if one in every thousand are interested in a hobby in a town of 5000 there will be only five people, but in a city of one million there will be thousand such persons, enough to support it. The formation of the subculture itself will attract more people. It is these relationships or networks that sustain differences in lifestyles observed in the cities. Intensification of subcultures takes place when they come in touch with the mainstream population and this can lead to aversion and conflict. This could be exemplified by the tension between hippies, gays and social conservatives. It could be said that the subcultural theory is a synthesis of the ecological and compositional theories. Like the latter it argues that urbanism does not produce mental collapse, anomie or interpersonal estrangement. On the contrary, urbanites are integrated into viable social worlds. However, like the Chicago school they argue that urbanism does have effect on social groups and individuals.
  2. Following this perspective, Fischer (1982) documented the effect of location on the quality and structure of personal networks. He found that individuals in the city differed from rural counterparts in that they had fewer kin or more unrelated intimates in their personal networks. However, the effect of place alone was quite small. The single most important predictor of non-kin networks was education: the more the years of education the more nonrelatives an individual had on one's personal network. Income was also an important factor which contributed to independence from relatives. Network analysis also discovered that as the metropolitan environment of cities and suburbs has matured, people now organize their lives across a greater spatial distance than in the past. Close relations are typically beyond neighbourhood. Following this line of arguments sociologists such as Barry Wellman have argued that the concept of community must be rethought to emphasize the non-neighbourhood basis of personal ties. In contemporary times communities consist of networks that are not spatially distinct but are dispersed across the metropolis and the country. Therefore, it is a 'community without a locality' and it is technology that has contributed to the rise of this new community—cell phones, blackberry, e-mail, that is, new modes of electronic telecommunications, that has contributed to the ability of the people to form networks without regard for spatial locations. Therefore, both the concepts of community and neighbourhood need to be redefined. For network analysis it is not spatial location but other factors such as class, education, gender and race that are more important in explaining urban behaviour. Because of technology now thousand people are not required in a particular city to form a group but we need the technology which can bring together thousand interested people across space. The theorists of socio-spatial perspective have criticized the network analysts for analyzing the role of space only in a very specific way and therefore missing the important influences of the built environment. The socio-spatial perspective which we are going to discuss in the next lecture conceives the influence of space in a broader, more general way while acknowledging the central role played by social factors. What is subculture? Sociologists define subculture in the following way: any system of beliefs, values and norms which is shared and actively participated in by an appreciable minority of people within a particular culture. It should be pointed out that the relationship of the subculture to the so-called dominant culture has been identified as one of sub-ordination and relative powerlessness. Subcultures have been examined in terms of ethnicity, class, deviance and youth culture. The subcultures such as 'rockers' and 'punks' serve to establish individual and group identity. There are some stylistic expressions such as language, demeanor, music, dress and dance. The subcultures show specialized linguistic phenomena, varying widely in form and content that depend on the nature of the groups and their relation to each other and to the dominant culture.

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