Displaced Masculinities: Chavs, Youth and Class in the Post-industrial City

Abstract

In an insecure post-industrial society working-class young men must forge new youth transitions. This entails rethinking what it is to be a ‘man’ beyond the world of industrial paid employment. It also involves a reshaping of a whole ‘way of life’ with the erosion of traditional labour and leisure lifestyles. This ethnographic study contrasts the cultural habitations of young men from traditional skilled working-class backgrounds with those from families experiencing long-term inter-generational unemployment. It explores their differently textured ‘going out’ experiences, their values, attitudes and practices. By focusing upon the subtle and explicit demarcations that distinguish the ‘rough’ from the ‘respectable’ working-class, the article argues that social class is of marked and continuing salience in youth culture. Furthermore, the work suggests that by exhibiting ‘spectacular masculinities’ of white male excess, young men accrue a body capital that has a currency and a local exchange value within the circuits they inhabit.