Australia

ext">They dress like their going to the gym.spectacle of someone trying to hard. For
They have undercuts and spiky hair. They have aexample, a subdued and pale looking Anglo Saxon
few tattoos, hidden from their parents view.male attempting to act, dress and associate
They listen to R&B and rap. They hang out inhimself with the subculture of the Lebanese
garages, playing cards, swearing and smoking pot.youth.
Their ideology of masculinity is a man thatK. Gelder and S. Thornton argue that ‘the
won’t take ‘no’ for an answer,difference between being in or out of fashion, high
has control over his ‘Mrs.’s’ andor low in sub cultural capital, correlates in complex
can stand up for himself. They speak with slangways with degrees of media coverage, creation
derived from the African American slang, with aand exposure’. In regards to the
few Arabic words here and there. They driveaforementioned subculture, commercial news and
fast, done up cars with controversial personalizedthe content of their broadcasting are discussed
number plates. Females are not welcome in thisoften amongst each other. They are in passionate
gathering nor are adults. Who are they? They areresistance to the negative portrayal of their
the Lebanese youth. Their offshoot, ‘hangingsubculture. It can be argued therefore that due to
out’, is the symbolic axis and working socialthe fact that their subculture is used as the
hub. This subculture is heavily reliant on being ‘in‘topic of the day’ so readily, that this
the know’- on being cool, calm andactually encourages them to become increasingly
dangerous. If one were to describe the socialrebellious against the ‘mainstream’ and
culture of this group, it would have to beforms of authority.
‘coolness’. But what is this culturalThe convertibility of cultural capital into economic
value? How is it embodied? How is it displayed?capital is what ultimately defines cultural capital.
Why it is so important to the Lebanese youth?Whilst sub cultural capital may not convert into
What are its social uses, its demographics, itseconomic capital, in being a market niche, with the
biases and discriminations?same ease or financial reward as cultural capital, a
They belong to a unitary culture. They maintainvariety of occupations or increased capital for
the same dress codes, dance styles, musicexisting occupations can be gained as a result of
genres and catalogue of authorized and illicit rituals.‘coolness’. American clothes designers,
They are a subculture from an ethnic culture.especially sportswear designers, such as Nike and
They generally congregate on the basis of sharedAdidas, American artists of hip-hop, rap and R&B
ethnicity and ideology, their consumption of theand sad to say drug dealers all make a living from
same media and, most importantly, theirtheir sub cultural capital.
preference for youth of the same ethnicity toSub cultural capital is not as class-bond as cultural
themselves.capital, even though it converts into economic
Taking part in this subculture builds affinities,capital. Class does not correlate in any
socialising participants into knowledge of the likesuninterrupted way with levels of youthful sub
and dislikes, meanings and values of the culture.cultural capital. For instance, it would not be
This community will last for several years untiluncommon for a Lebanese boy that was raised in
these boys decide to settle down throughan area that was densely populated with
primarily marriage. This subculture will then meltLebanese households, like Bankstown, to remain
into the ‘mainstream’.dressing, acting and speaking in the same way if
The opposition of the ‘mainstream’ ishe was to move to an area that was densely
undoubtedly how many constituents of youthpopulated with Anglo-Saxons and of a class.
subcultures characterize their own behaviour.Gender, after age, is the social difference along
However we can’t take youthfulwhich sub cultural capital is aligned most analytically
discourses literally; they are not a transparentto. Generally, the girls associated with this
window on the world. This is a constant mistakesubculture invest more of their time and identity
that has been made by cultural studies. Theyin doing well at school. The boys, in contrast,
have been inadequately critical of sub culturalspend more time and money on going out,
ideologies, first, because they were preoccupiedlistening to music and ‘hanging out with the
by the task of perforating and challengingboys’.
prevailing ideologies and, second, because theyThe ‘refusal of complicity’ might be said
were biased and tended to correspond with theto categorise the majority of Lebanese youth.
sub cultural discourses of the youth cultures theyThese youth are not as anchored in their social
study. Academics have acclaimed subcultures,place as those younger and older than themselves
while youth have celebrated theas they are not settled with a partner nor have
‘underground’. Where young peoplethey integrated into ‘Australian culture’.
have condemned the ‘commercial’,By investing in this act of leisure, Lebanese youth
scholars have criticised ‘hegemony’;further reject being fixed socially. They can
where one has grieved over ‘sellingpostpone ‘social aging’ or that ‘slow
out’, the other has conceivedrenunciation or disinvestment’ which leads
‘incorporation’.people to regulate their goals to their purposes, to
Youth visualize their own and other social groupssupport their state, become what they are and
through sub cultural ideologies, they declare theirmake do with what they have. Acting as a barrier
idiosyncratic nature and assert that they are notagainst social aging may be one of the reasons as
nameless affiliates of an undistinguished heap. Theto why it is so attractive to people well beyond
cultural theorists are not giving non-biasedtheir youth.
explanations of the way things really are, butLebanese youth can be seen as temporarily
incorporate ideologies that fulfil their specifictaking pleasure in the taste of independence.
cultural agenda. One should therefore not simplyFreedom from necessity, therefore, does not
delve into the way of life of a cluster community,mean that youth have wealth so much that they
but consider the way they make ‘meaning theare exempt from adult commitments to the
service of power’.accumulation of economic capital. They simply
The distinctions made by the Lebanese youth arereveal a methodical dedication, which allows
not simply affirmations of equal difference; theypractises that are discouraged by the mainstream.
entail a strong claim to authority and presume theThe term ‘subculture’ is therefore
inferiority of others. They are challenge theuseful as a means for analysing the position and
weight of, namely the police and laws establishedexperiences of the Lebanese youth of Australia.
by the government and see other sub culturalSub cultural capital is the key player of a
ethnic groups as inferior to them.substitute chain of command in which the
Within this subculture, elevated levels of incomeaffiliation of age, gender, sexuality and race are
and property do not associate with high levels ofoperational in order to keep the resolves of class,
cultural capital, as the two often conflict.income and occupation aside. Sub cultural capital
Comments about the ‘nouveau riche’discloses itself most clearly by what it dislikes and
reveal the likely frictions between those affluent inby what it definitely isn’t. The vast
cultural capital but fairly poor in economic capitalmajority of Lebanese youth distinguish
(like those Lebanese youth that are academics)themselves against the mainstream that, to some
and those rich in economic capital but less affluentdegree, can be seen to stand in for the masses-
in cultural capital (like professional football players).this distance is a measure of their cultural worth.
Therefore, the third category-social capital-thatSub cultural ideology unconditionally gives
stems not from what you know or what youalternative interpretations and values to young
have, but from who know, can be attributed forepeoples, particularly young men’s. It
mostly to the subculture of the Lebanese youth.reinterprets the social world. The Lebanese youth
Connections in the form of friends, relations,jockey for social power through these popular
associations and acquaintances can all bestowdistinctions; they are favouritisms by which
status. ‘Tell the boys that you know so and somembers are both given social statuses and
and watch them worship you’.endeavour for a meaning of self-worth. This
The ‘second nature’ of their knowledgeperspective foresees popular culture as a
is a quality that members of this subculture mustmulti-dimensional social space rather than as a flat
possess. Nothing diminishes capital more than theculture or as simply the end of the social ladder.