Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cjys20 Journal of Youth Studies ISSN: 1367-6261 (Print) 1469-9680 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjys20 ‘Often it is because of who is doing it.’ The production of a youth subculture’s image through talk Juan C. Aceros, Simone Belli & Maya Ninova To cite this article: Juan C. Aceros, Simone Belli & Maya Ninova (2019) ‘Often it is because of who is doing it.’ The production of a youth subculture’s image through talk, Journal of Youth Studies, 22:1, 46-65, DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124 Published online: 29 May 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 293 View related articles View Crossmark data https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cjys20 https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjys20 https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124 https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124 https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=cjys20&show=instructions https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=cjys20&show=instructions https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2018-05-29 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2018-05-29 ‘Often it is because of who is doing it.’ The production of a youth subculture’s image through talk Juan C. Aceros a, Simone Belli b and Maya Ninova c aSchool of Social Work, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia; bSchool of Social Science and Innovation, Yachay Tech, San Miguel de Urcuqui, Ecuador; cELISAVA – Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, Barcelona, Spain ABSTRACT This paper proposes a transactional approach to how the image of a subculture is co-produced through talk in the context of a face-to- face social encounter. A single-case micro-analysis of a talk about the squatting movement in Spain is developed. During the talk an interaction occurs between university students, one of whom is a squatter. Inspired by Goffman’s work on the presentation of the self in everyday life, we examined how co-participants engaged in the following: (1) the production of a working definition of squatting and squatters, (2) the critical examination of such definition, and (3) the repair of squatting and squatters’ image when it is spoiled. The analysed social encounter is regarded as an example of ‘mixed contact’ between members and non- members of youth (political) subculture. The discussion stresses the techniques of information control deployed by the subculturalist to manage the public image of squatters while performing dramaturgical loyalty to her membership groups. A transactional understanding of youth subculture is proposed. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 13 June 2016 Accepted 13 May 2018 KEYWORDS Squatting; squatters; micro- analysis; subculture; dramaturgical loyalty A university lesson is nearing its end and some students are talking about the squatting movement in Spain. Anna claims that the mass media conveys biased information about squatters because all forms of squatting are classified in the same category. Anna explicitly differentiates squatter types: troublemakers occupying a flat, the poor, or those who have political agendas. Each is clearly different from the other. Miriam says that by lumping these groups and their behaviours together, the mass media is ‘discredit- ing’ the squatters. Lourdes agrees saying, ‘For instance, I knew nothing about all this and I had a different perception, which was the one that the media has sold, and now I have changed my mind a lot.’ In this conversation ‘squatter’ becomes an identifiable category to label a group of youngsters. As the conversational participants suggest, this perception can be, and actively is transmitted by the mass media to elicit the effect of discrediting group members. However, even though the speakers are attributing the perception of the squat- ters to others, they are in fact contributing to such a representation. What follows is an exploration of how this is done locally through talk. The focus of this paper is on the © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group CONTACT Juan C. Aceros jacerosg@uis.edu.co JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 2019, VOL. 22, NO. 1, 46–65 https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1080/13676261.2018.1477124&domain=pdf http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2707-5419 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8934-7569 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0422-3060 mailto:jacerosg@uis.edu.co http://www.tandfonline.com construction of a youth subculture which has aroused sympathies among a distinct sub- section of Spanish youngsters. ‘Squatting’ refers to settling on land or occupying an empty building without legal enti- tlement or having the owner’s consent. In Spain squatters manifest different profiles: middle-class students who wish to be autonomous from their parents, activists looking for alternative lifestyles and, occasionally, teenagers adopting a squatters’ lifestyle (Feixa, Costa, and Pallarés 2001). In Barcelona, where this study was conducted, Vilaseca (2013) classified squatters into four groups: (1) young adults in search of independence (ocupas), (2) poor people squatting for financial reasons (ocupas), (3) drug dealers making their business during parties in squatted social centres (costras), and (4) activists (okupas). This paper is interested in the okupas, a category applied to people who carry out ‘political squatting’: ‘a promising field of action for those who are engaged in anti-sys- temic politics and who identify themselves with revolutionary or ‘autonomous’ ideas’ (Pruijt 2013, 36). The literature has paid attention to how political squatters are viewed by others, par- ticularly through mass media coverage (Adell Arguilés and Martínez López 2004). Some studies have highlighted how okupas communicate their collective identity through graf- fiti, stencils, blogs, etc. (Martínez 2012; Vilaseca 2013) and how squatters try to refute the prevailing perception (Dee 2016). No attention has been paid to the self-description of squatters in situations in which they talk to people who are not squatters. As a result, there is no information on how the perception of squatting is locally produced and con- tinuously negotiated in the context of face-to-face encounters with youngsters and other social actors. This omission could be as a result of the dominance of research traditions in which the focus is on structural or individual interpretations of youth cultural practices. The following pages work to fill this gap through an exploratory analysis of a situation in which a squatter presented a talk about the squatting movement in Spain. Inspired by Goffman’s work, exploration of how the speaker and co-participants pro- duced a shared understanding of the squatter’s subculture has been undertaken. The aim of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of subcultures from a transactional perspective. Specifically, it is expected to help shed light on how youngsters use language to construct, project and protect a collective subcultural identity. In fact, this study revisits the very notion of youth subculture by regarding it as a discursive achievement and it pur- ports that it is an image which is collectively produced and managed by subculturalists through a set of language practices. Okupas as subculturalists Political squatting began in The Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Switzer- land and Italy in the 1960s (Martínez 2012). In Spain, it emerged during the 1980s, with Madrid and Barcelona as the first cities where squatting occurred (Feixa, Costa, and Pal- larés 2001). In Barcelona, the phenomenon was initially inspired by the German version of squatting, which was an attempt to address housing issues. During the 1990s, the influ- ence of the Italian version of squatting appeared in the form of squatting social centres (Herreros Sala 2004). According to Vilaseca (2013), 10% of approximately 150 squatted houses in Barcelona are social centres. These places are used by okupas for housing JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 47 purposes as well as offering a variety of activities aimed to foster exchanges other than those occurring within the market. Similarly, to what Juris and Pleyers (2009) have said about alter-activism, political squat- ting is understood as being a way of working toward social change (an activist culture) and a way for youngsters to experience the world, build identities, and interact with others (a youth culture). In recognising such political and cultural dimensions of okupas’ practices, they are regarded as members of a youth subculture. The concept of subculture has been used by diverse competing theoretical positions in Youth Studies (Debies-Carl 2013) to understand collective practices and identities among young people (Hodkinson 2016). Although there are no unique definitions of subculture, it has been traditionally considered as a bounded social unit (Haenfler 2010): a coherent and internally homo- geneous group of young people who share ideas, material objects and practices (Williams 2011). This group exhibits a distinct pattern of life (Clarke et al. 2006) and symbolic politics (Blackman 2005): a bricolage of style, beliefs and ritual with which subculturalists subvert dominant (class) culture and propose ‘magical solutions’ (Cohen 1972) to its structural changes and ideological contradictions. In the 1990s’ the ‘post-subcultural turn’ (Bennett 2011) put into question this idea of youth subculture. Post-subcultural theorists promoted the abandonment of the notion and focussed attention on fluid, ephemeral, overlapping and loosely bounded affiliations in late capitalist societies. However, some authors consider that postmodern subcultural theories resulted in a weak understanding of the young people’s social, economic and cul- tural realities, as well as of the social nature of youth practices (Blackman 2005). According to current defenders of the ‘youth culture’ concept, many youth groups retain collective features –such as a sense of belonging, commitment and stability– not accounted for by post-modernists (Greener and Hollands 2006; Haenfler 2010). This seems to be the case with squatting. Literature on the topic considers squatting as an expression of a discernible youth sub- culture. Okupas organised as a counter-culture network of young people offering symbolic and material resistance to dominant norms and beliefs. Their political orientation is plur- alistic, with adherence to anarchist and autonomist sensibilities (Juris and Pleyers 2009; Vilaseca 2013) as well as communist and independentism ideals (Gonzàlez, Pelàez, and Blas 2002). Squatter’s most visible expression is the occupation of abandoned buildings in order to put them back into operation to alleviate housing problems, create collective facilities, establish autonomous spaces, and demonstrate an alternative way of living (Feixa, Costa, and Pallarés 2001). Through squatting, okupas are active in questioning and subverting mainstream culture. They reject the idea of private property and give value to self-management as powerful tools for social change (Feixa, Costa, and Pallarés 2001). Okupas also deploy other forms of collective actions such as demonstrations, rallies and cultural events (i.e. concerts and festivals) in favour of squatting and against sexism, racism, homophobia, fascism, militarism and capitalism. Although squatters can be considered as part of a youth subculture, this paper is not concerned with the reality or substance of such collectivities. Alternatively, a greater inter- est is in how squatters present themselves to others as a subculture. In this vein, the asser- tion is made that squatters are active in defining who they are as a group. In line with authors such as Nayak and Kehily (2014) and Hannerz (2015) they are regarded as knowl- edgeable and creative actors with the capacity to construct and negotiate their identities 48 J. C. ACEROS ET AL. in local settings. With the aid of Erving Goffman, the subcultural character of squatters is addressed, not as a fact, but as an interactional achievement of young people, and this phenomenon is explored as a discursive endeavour. The focus is on language features and practices with which subculturalists project and manage socially recognisable (and negotiable) collective identities during social interactions and encounters. The presentation of the squatter’s image during public encounters By using the theatrical performance as a model, Goffman studied how people present themselves to others and control the impressions they elicit in ‘gathered interactions’ or ‘encounters’: social arrangements that occur when people who are in one another’s immediate presence ‘effectively agree to sustain for a time a single focus of cognitive and visual attention’ (Goffman 1961, 8). According to Goffman, when an individual is in such situations he/she is likely to influence co-participants’ actions, particularly those evoked in response to his/her own performance (Goffman 1959, 1967). Through this very performance, the individual claims to be a person who possesses certain character- istics, and who has the right to be treated accordingly. This study departs from Goffman’s insights on the presentation of self-image in public settings. The focus is on what a person does when he/she speaks publicly in the name of a group. In such cases, the person is given a face to maintain because of duty to a wider social unit, ‘a face to which the feelings of many are attached’ (Goffman 1967, 13). In relation to this collective face and the group it represents, the performer is likely to mani- fest ‘dramaturgical loyalty’ (Goffman 1959). ‘Dramaturgical loyalty’ is the performer’s obli- gation of managing impressions not only for his/her own sake, but also for the sake of his/ her group dignity. According to Goffman (1967), if the person succeeds in maintaining his/ her line and receives support in doing so, he/she will respond with a feeling of honour (on the contrary, if the person fails, he/she will feel ashamed or inferior and may attempt to revert the situation). To manage impressions effectively during social interactions, the spokesperson has at his/her disposal the material aspects and practices of the group’s culture: dress style, gestures, postures, hairstyles, body modifications, behaviours and forms of talk. Youth studies pay great attention to the expressive form of subcultures (Clarke et al. 2006) by focusing on appearance and style (Debies-Carl 2013). In this study, the focus is a less studied expressive practice: spoken language and how it is displayed in response to negative group images that members of the dominant culture may express. It is worth mentioning that, in their use of language, subculturalists used to occupy a power- less position, i.e. in their interactions with adults (Becker 1963). Power imbalances in this dimension notoriously rest on the labelling processes, including the mobilisation of sub- cultural categories (such as ‘squatters’, ‘punks’, ‘emos’, etc.) by their parents, authorities and other members of the wider society, including other youngsters. Subculture categories are ‘leaden identities’ (Nayak and Kehily 2014) with a weight which is not easy for young people to escape. These labels come with conventionally associated attributes, activities and motives, making these language features inference- rich resources, useful in warranting and accounting for youngsters’ actions (Widdicombe 1998). Categories and attributes may determine the allocation of social fate (Goffman 1961) and this fact may present problems for those to whom they are applied (in JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 49 example, experiencing social control and injustice). Thus, subculturalists can be portrayed by others as pathological individuals, deviants or extravagant members of society (Black- man 2005). Squatters, for example, have been stereotyped in many contexts (Dee 2013, 2016). Since 1995, in Spain, okupas have become the target of demonisation when a penal code reform transformed squatting from a misdemeanour to a more serious criminal offense (Feixa, Costa, and Pallarés 2001). Vilaseca (2013) examined mainstream interpret- ations of squatters in Catalonia. He asserts that, while socialist politicians tend to stereo- type squatters as harmless young people with admirable but ineffective ideals, right- wing politicians are likely to consider squatters as uncontrollable and violent delinquents. While the first stereotypes present okupas as innocuous idealist young people, the second one attaches highly negative connotations to them. These negative connotations have been frequently employed in the mass media to criticise how squatting has been managed by the socialists’ mayoral administrations in Barcelona (Vilaseca 2013). The social use of subcultural categories may exacerbate the stigmatisation of subcultur- alists (Wyn and White 1997) leading young people to feel ignored, demeaned, and excluded in wider social encounters (Warr 2015). However, subculturalist are not simply bearers of ‘leaden identities’, but actors with the capacity to resist both labelling and common assumptions about subcultures (Widdicombe and Woofitt 1995). Widdicombe (1998) has documented how ‘punks’ do it during interviews by invoking their identities as ‘ordinary persons’, claiming that their appearances are manifestations of their authentic self-identities, and denying possession of criterial attributes. Chernoff and Widdicombe (2015) have shown participants in emo’s Internet forums engaging with the group while negotiating problematic assumptions about membership. Some authors have accused Goffman of denying this sort of agency to young people (see, Debies-Carl 2013). However, this is not the case. Goffman (1959, 1967) offers insights to explore into how all people, including youngsters, actively manage and negotiate their identities in social encounters. In Stigma, Goffman (1963) highlights how it happens in situ- ations of power imbalance. In this regard, the author focuses on ‘mixed contacts’: encoun- ters in which one of the participants emerges as a person holding signs of being ‘a blemished person, ritually polluted, and to be avoided’ (p. 11). The perceptibility of this deteriorated identity poses challenges to the impression created for both the stigmatised person and the co-participants. Goffman (1963, 57) summarises this challenge as follows: ‘To display or not to display; to tell or not to tell; to let on or not to let on; to lie or not to lie; and in each case, to whom, how, when, and where’. This is what the author understands as ‘information control’: the strategic ‘over-communication’ of some issues and ‘under-com- munication’ of others (Goffman 1959). The suggestion is made that, when a person representing a youth subculture is in the presence of non-members, a mixed contact could also occur. Co-participants are likely to be members of other groups (including opponents) or part of the mainstream culture, with negative stereotyped images of the subculture. Additionally, subculturalists are likely to be aware of such situations, anticipating misunderstanding, criticism, or discrimination. As a result, they will deploy information control, to protect themselves and exhibit dramaturgi- cal loyalty. This paper approaches this phenomenon through the micro-analysis (Goffman 1983b) of a single social encounter with the potential of being a ‘mixed contact’ for a squatter. 50 J. C. ACEROS ET AL. Method Micro-analysis requires the meticulous description of interactive details of mundane occasions, in order to find almost unnoticed forms of social action (Jacobsen 2010). The case that was examined, is a 41-minute talk about the squatter movement, spoken by a twenty-year-old psychology student (who is also a okupa) in front of her classmates. The talk was given during a university lesson on collective psychology in which one of the authors participates as a teacher. The speaker, who will be called Laia on the following pages, was in her last year of undergraduate studies. She was the only person in the classroom with a noticeable okupa style and a consistent squatting experience. She became a squatter in her adoles- cence, following in the footsteps of her older brother. Since then, she has been engaged in several social centres in different Barcelona neighbourhoods. At the time of the speech, she was living in a squat in Sant Andreu: a working-class district in the north of Barcelona. Those were the reasons she was selected by the teacher to prepare a talk about squatting. The teacher asked Laia to prepare her talk voluntarily. The speaker was completely free to choose to give the talk. She accepted the teacher’s invitation without ulterior motives (i.e. receiving a grade), considering it an opportunity to share her experiences with her classmates. The audience was composed of twenty-one students who were twenty years of age on average, and with no squatting experience. Two of them were okupas’ sympathisers who had participated in activities organised by social centres. Because of the small size of the group, and the experience of studying together for the least three years, the students knew each other well. Most of them were friends. Laia herself had close relationships with some of her classmates. The classroom environment was positive and open to dialo- gue and debate. Laia’s talk was planned to last for half an hour. After about twenty minutes, the ques- tions from other students transformed the talk into a fluid exchange between the subcul- turalist and her audience. Having asked for the consent of all the participants, the whole situation was tape-recorded by the teacher. The students agreed that the recording would be used for research purposes only. Neither the speaker nor the students were assessed on their involvement or lack of participation in the activity. Classmates were allowed to leave the classroom at any time. The talk on squatting was regarded as a situated activity system, or encounter. Specifi- cally, understood as a ‘mixed contact’. The examined occasion may be different from others in which a squatter may be called upon to portray her group. For example, the speaker is not talking to strangers but to friends and acquaintances. Additionally, her talk may be implicitly sanctioned by an authority figure (the teacher). Nevertheless, the occasion is relevant for the purposes of this article because the following conditions were present: (1) the situation required for a young person to take the role of speaker in front of others; (2) the speaker openly presented herself as a subculturalist and spoke on behalf of her group; (3) the audience who were gathered were not subculturalists; and (4) the speaker and her audience freely managed the situation by themselves. The tape recording was transcribed and translated from Spanish and Catalan (the languages originally employed by the participants) into English. The transcription conven- tions were inspired by Jefferson’s (2004) conventions (see Appendix). They captured both JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 51 the content of the talk and how it was articulated. The names of all the participants were anonymized. The recording and the transcription were reviewed repeatedly by the researchers to increase familiarity with the data. Thanks to this process, it became evident that being a ‘squatter’ was a particularly salient category throughout many inter- related talk sequences. These sequences conflated long monologues by the subculturalist and short exchanges with and between the co-participants. Although additional talks were already produced between separated sequences, these appeared to the analysts as con- nected because the participants could recall what was said in prior talks. That way, a chain of sequences concerned with the squatters’ image were traced. For analytical pur- poses, it was divided into three periods: a preamble (in which the subculturalist proposes a working definition of her group), a knot (in which co-participants question the working definition), and a resolution (when squatters’ image is repaired by the speaker). Results Preamble The starting point of the interaction chain was identified at the beginning of the talk, when the speaker (Laia) summarised the history of the squatting movement, as it is shown below. (1) 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 62 63 64 65 Laia … During the Sixties, (.) in Italy, in Germany mobilisations occurred- eh there were- [people] started (.) the occupatio::n of pla:ces, the occupatio::n of empty houses, the occupation of schools,… E:::h and the [squatters’] claim- (.) well- Two types of of claims existed… on the one hand it i:::s what we could call the occupation e:h (.) because of the need of a decent housing. . . . On the other ha:nd, there is the occupation o::f what is called squatted social centres. The later would be [considered] (.) the mo::st cultural dimension [of squatting]. In this fragment (1) ‘squatting’ appears as a European phenomenon arising during the sixties, with the occupation of buildings as its expression. From line 29, Laia depicts squat- ting as something that is done rationally; i.e. for a reason. Squatting is not a fanciful activity but the serious endeavour of making two ‘claims’. Firstly, it is the fight for ‘decent housing’ (line 33); secondly, it is the creation of ‘squatted social centres’ (lines 63’65). The examin- ation of how Laia speaks about the second ‘claim’ is particularly relevant because she con- centrates her talk on it, as (2) illustrates: (2) 66 67 68 Laia: … the [squatters’] aim (.) is eh: to create centres (.) in which activities are carried out. The activities (.) are very 52 J. C. ACEROS ET AL. 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 diverse. E:::h the people, well- [in the centres] there are people that are: (.) ((ts)) maybe- I mean [they are] more e::h (.) How to say? Different kind o:::f- They can be environmentalists, environmentalist groups, artists, ehm:: (.) alternative media moveme:nts. Ok? And the [centre’s] aim is to provide e::h a cultural offer which (.) doesn’t exist or only exists in an institutionalised way. In (2), Laia describes social centres as providers of cultural services and as a milieu for cultural producers, an issue pointed to by a number of authors (Feixa, Costa, and Pallarés 2001; Vilaseca 2013). Thus, she projects a working definition of squatting as a ‘cultural’ endeavour. Laia is clearly oriented toward a ‘cultural’ description of squatting at the end of (2) when she states that centres aim ‘to provide a cultural offer’ to the community (lines 76–78). During the speech, Laia reinforces this picture by speaking about cinema projections, theatrical plays or painting exhibitions organised by okupas. The characterising of squatting as a ‘cultural’ activity produces a potentially innoc- uous collective image. This definition has no negative connotations attached to it. In fact, it did not pose visible problems to Laia’s talk nor was it problematic for the audi- ence, who simply followed what the subculturalist was saying. However, the ‘cultural’ picture of squatting was a precarious achievement, and should have been sustained by Laia via information control. Indeed, the speaker was socially skilful in face- saving (Goffman 1967). From the beginning of her talk she was protecting the squat- ter’s collective image from alternative understandings. For example, in her historical account of the movement she overlooked information about squatting as a housing strategy. Additionally, she focussed her talk on telling stories about ‘social centres’ and tried to minimise the association of these centres with activities which were not clearly ‘cultural’. However, Laia could not support this version of squatting and as such the image faced opposition as the talk continued. The threats came from the suggestion – by the speaker herself – that squatting was not merely a ‘cultural’ action, but a ‘political’ one. In fragments such as (2), Laia suggested a political modality of squatting occurring in social centres when she spokes about ‘environmentalist talks’, ‘alternative media initiatives’, and activities conducted to address ‘concrete problems of the neighbour- hoods’ where the centres are located. By clearly mentioning non-cultural activities, Laia was making relevant alternative understandings of squatting which were conse- quential to her talk: co-participants might have noticed them and asked for clarifica- tions that would jeopardize the face that the squatter was attempting to convey. The speaker’s talk indicated that she was sensitive to this issue. In (2), lines 69–75, it is noticeable that Laia was facing some troubles. It was striking how hesitating the speaker’s utterances were. She self-corrects her talk on four occasions, and produced indications suggesting doubts (such as the sound ts in 70, or the expressions ‘maybe’ in 71). For Laia, to have enumerated the ‘people’ who participate in ‘social centres’ was a delicate matter. In the preface of the talk, the speaker was creating an acceptable image of the squatters. Her performance was substantially easier when a ‘cultural’ face was JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 53 presented, but became progressively more difficult when squatters were characterised in political ways (as activists) by her audience. According to Goffman (1959), tact and considerateness tend to protect encounters from disturbances. Co-participants used tact to show consideration for the feelings of others present to avoid spoiling anyone’s image. However, this was not always the case: incidents occurred with sym- bolic implications threatening the image projected by co-participants (Goffman 1967). As will be highlighted next, during the speech about the squatting movement, the audience made it difficult for Laia to sustain the positive image she was trying to convey. Knot The collective image presented by Laia faced the threat of ‘destructive information’ (Goffman 1959) provided by issues the speaker conveyed and those to which the audience paid attention. In this regard, the main destructive issue found was about the relationship between okupas and the authorities. This relationship was depicted by the first time in (3), when Laia exposes the threat of eviction by police forces that ‘squatted centres’ experience: (3) 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 Laia: Pere: Laia: One day, at seven o’clock in the morning, they entere:d. The police came… They entered. They destroyed eve:rything. (.) They destroyed guita:rrs, destroyed (.) music equipme::nt, destroye::d eve:rythi::ng a::nd= =With no [reason? [e::h yes yes. Without a reason. Additionally, there were: two persons sleeping sleeping indoors. I mean, there were no matter o::f (.) ((ts)) no- or the- no- let’s say… No- there were no- They didn’t fight with the cops, I mean. In (3), the ‘cultural’ image of squatters was reinforced, but also disrupted. The ‘cultural’ face of squatting was made relevant when Laia enumerated the items destroyed by the police (lines 303–304): ‘guitars’ and ‘music equipment’. However, the ‘cultural’ face also became potentially discreditable. If squatters were organising only cultural events, the police intervention was difficult to understand. Further explanations were needed, particu- larly because eviction was depicted by Laia as aggressive. This was regarded as accounta- ble by Pere who formulated a question about it. It was striking how Laia replied to Pere. She anticipated the concern of Pere, and replied before he had finished speaking as indicated in 306. By doing that, she enacted percep- tiveness (Goffman 1967): Laia was aware of potential interpretations that co-participants might have had about what she was saying, and prepositioned herself to the potential issues that could have been raised. Thus, she did not only answer that there was ‘no reason’ for the aggressive police intervention (projecting, by the way, a negative image of police forces), but also worked in a non-conflictive image of the squatters: the okupas did not respond in kind, and they didn’t resist eviction. The latter picture of 54 J. C. ACEROS ET AL. squatters was built with a hesitating performance: several talk features (vowel enlarge- ments, non-verbal sounds, self-repairs) suggest that Laia was facing a sensitive issue again. Additionally, as (4) illustrates, the answer provided by the speaker was not enough for Pere to understand why okupas are mistreated by authorities. His second inter- vention during the talk occurred when Laia was describing how local governments responded to squatters’ requests for the organisation of public acts: (4) 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 Laia: Pere: Laia: Pere: Laia: Pere: Laia: … you try to act corr- eh you ask for permission to the municipa- I don’t understand, but they don’t authorise you. Then, you must behave illegally… Always you face proble[ms. [Why wh- why do you think that they always deny the authorisation? o:::r (.) [often. [No [the question is] not why- It is not something we think. They they deny= =Yeah ok. [I mean why why= [always. No sometimes. =do you think this (.) happen? Look, e::h (.) Sometimes- (.) I think that they are not interested [in supporting us]. In (4) an ambivalent image of squatting was created by Laia. She suggested that squat- ters suffer unfair treatment from local governments constraining their activities. At the same time, she recognised that okupas break the law. The speaker established a causal link between both phenomena: it was because governments don’t authorise squatters’ activities that subculturalists are forced to ‘behave illegally’. Pere reacted to this imputation of blame by asking for an explanation of the municipality’s actions. With his question, he implied that there was something wrong with squatters. He took care to formulate his inquiry in a non-offensive way (i.e. repairing an ‘always’ with an ‘often’, in 460–461). However, he received a definitive answer from Laia. In 462–466 she exonerated okupas of culpable responsibility and described the municipality’s behaviour as openly oppositional. In response to Pere’s question, Laia’s answer was intended to expunge the implication of unfavourable characterisation. She rejected delinquent qualities of the okupas’ beha- viours, and ascribed the local government’s mistreatment of squatters to ulterior motives (the interests of politicians, in 469). Nevertheless, this attempt failed and new members of the audience started to articulate an image of squatters as inappropriate pol- itical players. This action is noticeable in (5), after Laia accounts for the local authorities’ mistreatment as caused by the local government’s ‘interests’: (5) 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 Laia: Marta: … they are not interested. It is also mostly- It depends on:- ((ts)) Usually, It is due due due to the person who- I mea:n (.) Sometimes it is due to what are you doing, and sometimes it is because of who is doing it. I think it is mostly because of who JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 55 537 538 539 540 541 542 Rocío: Pere: Laia: Marta: Pere: [is doing it. [Because of who- Right. Often it is because of who is doing it. [I think that- [Exactly. In (5), Laia ascribed to authorities a negative orientation towards squatters’ activities (what activists do). She also suggested that, from the point of view of the authorities, there is also a problem with squatter identity (who they are). This latter idea may be par- ticularly destructive to the okupas’ image. To subscribe to the idea of ‘who they are’ as opposed to ‘what they do’ is to accept that there is something intrinsically negative in such a subculture. Thus, Laia was clear as to who holds such an opinion: the authorities. She was also careful in suggesting how often this view was expressed: Laia moved from a ‘mostly’ to a ‘sometimes’, trying to downplay the issue. However, a co-participant (Marta) returned to the speaker’s first statement about the authorities’ relationship with squatters ‘mostly’ being regarded as to who they are. Two other participants agreed with this characterisation. Then Laia appears to have concurred with the audience by stating that ‘Often it is because of who is doing it’. Having been confronted with confound- ing information Laia capitulated and agreed intimating, at least momentarily, what Goffman (1963) describes ‘in wrong face’, which, in other words, worsened the spoiled identity of the squatters. Subsequent to Pere’s agreement, an ephemeral dramaturgical disloyalty was exhibited. At this point, it is important to remember that Laia, as with any other person, was involved in more than one situated activity system and, therefore, might take on more than one role at a time (Goffman 1961). In the case examined, the speaker was in front of fellow classmates. She was not only member of the subculture she was speaking about, but part of the group of students to whom she was speaking. Thus, what ‘drama- turgical loyalty’means here is particularly problematic. Apparently, Laia cannot be loyal to both membership groupings at the same time. The way Laia coped with destruct infor- mation about squatters led her to momentarily protect the relationship she has with her classmates at the expense of ‘saving the face’ of subculturalists. This makes further impression management a relevant activity to be undertaken by her. Closure In the last part of her talk, Laia focussed on restoring squatters’ face. The following frag- ment illustrates how she does it: (6) 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 Laia: … The people hear the word squatting and they only catch a couple of ideas. A::nd squatting goes further and it is broader [than that]. (.) Ok? I mean, it is- I already said that the the tha::t squatting aims a hous- I mean a hous- It advocates a decent housing, and it also advocates an open culture. Right? And those are two:: (.) e:h options. Additionally [we can consider] another situation: that of a person who decides [autonomously] to 56 J. C. ACEROS ET AL. 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 Pere: simply occupy a house, but without fighting for a cause. This [latter case] is not (.) part of the squatting (.) movement. I mean, you don’t occupy because you want to occupy, [Ok? But- [I agree [with you] about that [latter] group. I don’t know if it is a majority or a minority, but it (appears) a lot in TV. In (6), Laia deployed two strategies. Firstly, she protected the dignity of her classmates’ sentiments. She put forward that the maltreatment of squatters was a consequence of the incomplete understanding that members of the wider public have about it (lines 738–739). In this sense, she detached controversies about the squatting’s image from the people directly involved in the ongoing encounter. The speaker suggested that ‘the people’ (other than her classmates) have only a partial idea about squatting because they are not aware of activists’ aims. As already stated, Laia described squatting as a rational endea- vour. In (6) she highlighted that this rationality is selfless in nature: it is oriented to the common good. When ‘the people’ do not recognise that, they misunderstand what squat- ters do and equate them with questionable actors. Once Laia reached this point in her talk, a second strategy was deployed. She carried out a corrective process (Goffman 1967) with the aim of saving the squatter’s face: restoring the dignity and nobility of the squatters’ motives. Laia reconfigures the image of the squatters by fashioning a contrast between okupas and the hypothetical case of a person who occupies a building for his/her own benefit, without having a political agenda (lines 747–749). According to Laia, two elements charac- terised the hypothetical squatter (ocupa): he/she is not member of a collective, but an indi- vidual, and he/she is not pursuing the common good. Because he/she behaves without a political motivation, Laia excluded him/her from being an okupa (lines 749–750). By con- trasting the individual to collective-oriented squatting, she spotlighted the okupas’ com- mitment to altruism, having their actions gain in respectability. Laia resolved the impression-management-challenge she faced by exposing misunder- standings of her peer group about squatting and by re-articulating the okupas’ image as beneficial for society. Both strategies were well received by co-participants. Although Pere does not endorse the description of the ocupas as ‘individuals’ (he reformulates them as ‘groups’), his intervention resonated with the speaker’s words. Pere points to the way mass media produces a misunderstanding about squatting by spreading news about people that behave according to Laia’s depiction (lines 753–755). This intervention led to the conversation quoted at the beginning of the paper: (7) 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 Miriam: Lourdes: Laia: … it is a way for people to see a negative image (.) of this [group. [For instance, I knew (.) nothing about all this. And I had a different image [on squatting], which is that they sell to you. No? e::h and now I have changed my mind a lot. [( ) [( ) we in the neighbourhood. We ar- we are a lot of people:: and a::nd additionally there are- (.) In so::me JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 57 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 866 867 868 specific places, where, well. There are some persons (.) who:: are- the::y are occupying- (.) well. They don’t have othe::r things to do bu::t (.) well (.) that taking drugs. (.) Additionally, you know. They are in such a state (.) Frequently we have had clashes [with them] (.) clashes because- well, because:: (.) they are (.) completely anti-social. . . . They damage the image of what (.) the squatting movement tries to be in essence. In (7), the public image of squatting is still at stake. Co-participants described how the ‘mass media’ produces negative perceptions of squatters and how ‘the people’ hold such perceived images. This issue was made recognisable to Lourdes who used herself as an example of an individual whose perceptions were incomplete and it gave rise to a ‘change of mind’ when more complete information was available. At this point, not only did the subculturalist align her description of squatting closer to that of her peers, the co-participants also came closer in agreement with the subculturalist. In this secure context, Laia succeeded in transferring unfavourable characterisations – ‘taking drugs’ (line 851), and being ‘anti-social’ (line 855)-, usually attached to okupas, to other groups. The speaker accused others of ‘damaging the image’ (lines 866–867) of squatters. As in (6), she contrasted okupas with similar-but-not-the-same actors, concretely with those called ‘costras’ by Vilaseca (2013). According to Vilaseca (2013, 3), ‘costras’ are a minority of squatters engaged in selling drugs who ‘strip the okupas of political content and the possible positive social impact that such content may have on the neighbourhoods (…) because conservative print media stress the negative social effects’. Laia mentioned this negative form of squatting to restore a positive image of political squatting the ‘essence’ of which, according to her, was obscured by misunderstandings. Once this action was deployed a new working consensus about the okupas’ image emerged and the speech expressive order (Goffman 1967) was restored: no new threats from the audi- ence to the face of the subculturalists’ occurred. Discussion The analysis presented in this study points to a transactional component of youth subcul- tures. It acknowledges the way in which a squatter presents the group she belongs to in front of an audience of non-members, and how she manages the impression that others form of it. The analysed situation is an example of ‘mixed contact’(Goffman 1963); a social encounter in which one of the co-participants holds a spoiled identity, and has to portray it to people who consider themselves as ‘normal’. Squatting is usually regarded as an issue of juvenile deviant behaviour, violence and delinquency by the okupas’ opponents. These questionable images are accessible to the wider public and the youngsters through mass media, and may be used to articulate negative judgements against squatters. When a young person presents herself/himself as an okupa in front of people who are not, she/he can anticipate criticism and rejection. The subculturalist is called on to show 58 J. C. ACEROS ET AL. perceptiveness (Goffman 1967) and dramaturgical loyalty (Goffman 1959) to preserve her group’s dignity, as well as her own sense of honour (Goffman 1963). This analysis suggests that those are noticeable features of the analysed squatter’s public performance. There is a significant body of literature recognising that subculturalists manage their public image in a flexible and choice-based way (McCulloch, Stewart, and Lovegreen 2006; Polsky 1967). This includes young people openly rejecting subcultural categories, but also avoiding to present themselves as subculturalists in front of strangers (Hannerz 2015; Widdicombe 1998) and producing positive group images when a subcultural iden- tity is publicly spoiled (Nayak and Kehily 2014). The rejection of a subcultural adscription could be interpreted as part of a set of information control techniques aimed at stigma management. What occurs when these techniques are deployed is the rejection or trans- formation of potentially problematic assumptions about group affiliation. In the data from this study, a subculturalist produces her definition of squatting as if she were talking in a context of potentially negative inferences about her group. According to Goffman (1983a), people’s actions are always addressed to the minds of others. Laia’s defi- nition of squatting is a consequence of that, and may be regarded as an example of ‘reci- pient design’ (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974). Through this feature of talk, speakers address a range of issues, including inferences that could be drawn about speakers, and about the groups they represent. She does so by using several information control tech- niques. By following Goffman (1959), we can classify them as preventive and corrective in their orientation. The first type of technique consists in avoiding situations in which threats are likely to occur (Goffman 1967, call them ‘avoidance processes’). In the case we exam- ined, the subculturalist works in a potentially acceptable definition of her group by ‘under- communicating’ information on the political dimension of squatting, and ‘over-communi- cating’ information on the cultural one. The second identified technique is preventive as well as corrective. In this case, the speaker depicts the relationships between squatters and other players by highlighting the positive actions of the former and the mistreatment of the latter. In order to do that, she mobilises contrastive pairs, powerful rhetorical structures that people usually employ to delineate their image in a favourable light (McKinlay and Dunnet 1998). Laia refers to the squatters-authorities’ pair and insists that police forces and local rulers treated squatters in unnecessarily violent and unfair ways. She mobilises these contrastive pairs to produce a favourable image of the okupas. When she failed to prevent an inter- position of an unfavourable image, she needed to use some corrective measures. The third technique employed by Laia was corrective; used as a form of ‘discursive cleansing of spoiled identities’ (Nayak and Kehily 2014). The speaker transferred destruc- tive information about squatting to players who are considered non-members of the sub- culture. In doing so, she continued employing contrastive-pairs as a tool. Laia contrasted the political motivations of okupas with the ‘selfish’ actions of ‘ocupas’ and restored the authenticity of squatting by distinguishing it from the ‘anti-social’ behaviour of ‘costras’. The implication was that while the common-good-oriented activities dignified the squat- ters, the self-seeking and problematic activities of the other social players condemned them. The information control techniques are employed by the subculturalist to perform dra- maturgical loyalty to her group and manage stigma. They should be understood as indi- vidual moves within the flow of expressive events which constitute a contact between JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 59 subculturalist and non-subculturalists. While the first technique is necessary to avoid dis- turbances of the expressive order of such encounters, the third and the second one can be regarded as part of a corrective interchange (Goffman 1967) which is triggered when inter- actional equilibrium is eroded by co-participants. If negative inferences about a subculture come to the forefront (or it is anticipated by subculturalists), a sequence of actions occur to neutralise them and save the collective face. When confronted with a credible threat, the subculturalist discloses it, then orients her action to her group’s worth by elevating its commendable status. If this is not a satisfactory means to restore equilibrium, subcultur- alists may try to transfer questionable attributes to members of a similar (but, in key issues, different) collectivity. If this last move succeeds, co-participants support the restored collective face and no more threats are expressed by them. This corrective interchange is not always developed without difficulties. Two dramatur- gical problems the young spokesperson faced during her performance were found. The first problem is related to the speaker’s ‘dramaturgical discipline’ (Goffman 1959). Laia was called on to act as a discrete and competent speaker who could convey favourable impressions of her membership group. According to Goffman (1963), this means to take responsibility ‘of standing guard over the flow of events’ (p. 9) as they pass before her, trying to sustain an ‘expressive order’ which is consistent with the image she is projecting. However, a thorough examination of her talk suggested that her speech made question- able qualities salient. This performance disruption could have taken two forms. On the one hand, Laia’s hesitating talk when political issues were addressed, contributed to making evident that sensitive matters were at stake. On the other hand, during the talk, Laia was frequently attaching negative images onto squatters. She suggested that they might be considered ‘violent’, that squatters sometimes ‘behave illegally’, and that they are nega- tively perceived by the authorities. She did so to anticipate the orientation of her audience toward negative images of squatting. However, she was also producing attention-getting devices and gave to the audience the opportunity to further develop contentious issues. A second problem arose from the speaker’s relationship with her audience. According to Goffman (1959), dramaturgical loyalty requires avoiding this link to becoming too much affective. This was an objective which was difficult to attain in the situation analysed. Laia is not only a squatter but a member of the group of classmates to whom she is talking. Members of the audience are also her friends. Thus, she experienced a double membership, requiring solidarity toward two different groups. At a certain point, this situation may have become challenging for her. In projecting a positive image of okupas, the speaker not only depends on her own competence, but also on the audience tacit consent. No matter how passive their role, her classmates’ responses contributed to the definition of the ongoing situation. Ordinarily, a surface of agreement between participants – a ‘working consensus’ (Goffman 1959) – is co-operatively guaranteed through tact. However, disruptions may also occur. As shown, the audience might alter the positive image that the speaker was trying to project. When disruptions occur, the speaker experiencing double membership, has a dif- ficult decision to make. If she continues defending the subculture’s image against the negatively-valued characteristics her classmates attach to it, she protects the okupas but distances herself from her peers. If she expresses her agreement with some of their views, she maintains her alliance with the audience but discredits the squatters. Even- tually, she may betray one of her membership groups. In the encounter analysed, the 60 J. C. ACEROS ET AL. speaker resolved this problem with a clever protective movement: she conceded the descriptions projected by others but safeguarded the positive image of squatters that she was conveying by transferring the ownership of negative stereotypes from her class- mates to an abstract group (‘the people’) who were absent during the talk. The detailed examination of a single-case is not well suited for generalisations and its outcomes cannot be presumed to speak for all subcultures (Debies-Carl 2013). However, it offers insights into the cultural availability of orderly forms of producing youth subcultures through talk; forms that are possibly (and probably) reproducible in different social encounters. As, Goffman (1967) asserts, practices through which people present them- selves to others are often ritualised, becoming a standard repertoire of practices to indi- viduals, subcultures and societies. Thus, the distribution across settings of the findings is expected by the analysts, although a clear idea of their trans-situational properties requires further empirical research. Exploratory in nature, this study expects to offer an alternative conceptualisation of youth subcultures. It purports to understand the phenomenon as an image which is pieced together by co-participants during social occasions. This image is part of the ‘expres- sive order’ (Goffman 1963) speakers sustain through their own actions and reactions to others’ presence and behaviour. As for a speaker’s self-image in Goffman (1967), it is ‘something that is diffusely located in the flow of events in the encounter and becomes manifest only when these events are read and interpreted for the appraisals expressed in them’ (p. 6). This transactional understanding of a youth subculture appears to resonate with postmodernists’ conceptualizations of youngsters’ sociality. However, it is not the case. As it is already known, postmodernists have expressed their disaffection with essenti- alists’ conceptualisations of subculture as stable configurations (see, Blackman 2005; Debies-Carl 2013). They argue that there are no such things as coherent, consistent, and recognisable subcultures, but youth social worlds characterised by shifting, ephemeral, flexible, temporary and fluid identities. Post-subculture approaches to youth social life as a mere state of life (Maffesoli 1996) and a surface appearance (Muggleton 2000), appear as consistent with a Goffman-inspired approach to subculture. However, the trans- actional perspective which is proposed here does not embrace distinctive features of post- subculture theories (see, Blackman 2005; Debies-Carl 2013), specifically their individualistic understanding of youth agency, their emphasis on consumption, and their abandonment of ‘subculture’ as an useful concept are rejected. In contrast to post-modern theories, a Goffmanian approach to youngsters’ social lives might embrace the notion of ‘subculture’. In this sense, this study is part of a sort of revival of the concept which is occurring after postmodern effervescence. Nowadays, some authors are studying ‘subcultures’ as a way to understand lived experiences by young people (Dedman 2011) as well as to grasp structural factors neglected by post-subculture theorists (Shildrick and MacDonald 2006). Current research shows that some youth groups retain collective features –such as sense of belonging, commitment and stability– not accounted for by post-modernists (Greener and Hollands 2006; Haenfler 2010). This is the case, even when fluid, contingent and contradictory subcultural identities in such groupings are possible (Wood 2003). Squatting can be asserted as a youth subculture with a distinctive identity, history, pattern of life, boundaries, and norms resisting mainstream ethos (Feixa, Costa, and JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 61 Pallarés 2001). In this paper, such an assertion is not only a theoretical point but an empiri- cal one as well. We suggest that it is how the okupas’ present themselves to the public. In front of others, squatters project their image as members of a distinct social unit and, in their discursive practices, they may demonstrate commitment to what they consider to be a recognisable group of people with common values, practices, aims and political pro- jects. The dynamic production of a squatting collective face in social encounters could be regarded as part of the processes through which squatters create the reality of their own subculture. In this paper, the substance of squatting-as-a-subculture is not taken for granted, but studied as a social achievement by subculturalists-in-a-social-context. The existence and the features of the squatting subculture is regarded as a byproduct of the youngsters’ competence in articulating their collective image through goal-oriented practices. It is not simply a form of hedonistic self-expression through consumption, but a practical form of group formation and collective identity production. This endeavour is a moral responsibility that subculturalists have toward the collectivities of which they are part. Youngsters assume such responsibility by mobilising, designing and projecting their group’s public identity in positive ways. They do it with the symbolic resources that they have at their disposal, not merely style, but also through different forms of talk and other discursive practices. Transactional analysis, like those inspired by Goffman, are not in their best form today. The emergence and popularisation of CCCS theory on subculture led them to a secondary position in Youth Studies. Transactional analysis was accused of neglecting the key role of structural factors in youth subcultures by focusing only on processes of public labelling and internalisation of deviant identities by youngsters (see, Debies-Carl 2013). The current micro-analysis may be accused of having the same restricted point of view. Never- theless, a Goffmanian perspective is not necessarily inconsistent with a study of structural factors (see, Goffman 1983b). The production of subcultural images ‘is diffusely located in the flow of events’ (Goffman 1967, 6) but is not a free-floating phenomenon. Its production occurs in the context of the interactional order, being a well-bounded social system (Chriss 2003) imposing constraints and limitations on its co-participants. The formation of a subculture is a process of struggle and negotiation (Nayak and Kehily 2014) involving young people and a myriad of players articulating young identities in the social context (Thornton 1995; Wyn and White 1997). Those players may have a direct impact in a given encounter. They can also make their presence felt indirectly. For example, youth subcultures are also constituted by the influence of the external public, i.e. via stigmatisation through mass media. Young people may react to this process on social occasions, rejecting mainstream representations of subculture (Cohen 1972; Dee 2016), and actively working to re-frame ‘leaden identities’ (Nayak and Kehily 2014), however, their range of action is not unlimited. According to Goffman, for every group – placed in a given socio-historical situation – only a small choice of identities and face-work practices are at their disposal. Faces ‘can be saved only in a certain number of ways, and each social grouping must make its selec- tions from this single matrix of possibilities’ (Goffman 1967, 13). In their efforts to make their group image public, the groups are conditioned by the relationships to power estab- lished during social encounters, as well as by wider social and cultural structures. Goffman himself was not concerned with the linkages between interactional practices and social 62 J. C. ACEROS ET AL. structures. 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( ) Unclear speech to which no transcription is made. … Material that has been left out of the extract. ar- A dash denotes a sharp cut-off of a prior word or sound. a::nd Colons show that the speaker has elongated the preceding sound. [I mean… Square brackets between adjacent lines of concurrent speech denote the start [always. of overlapping talk. they deny= ‘Equals’ signs mark no discernible gap between turns. =Yeah JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 65 https://doi.org/10.1080/1367626032000068154 Abstract Okupas as subculturalists The presentation of the squatter’s image during public encounters Method Results Preamble Knot Closure Discussion Disclosure statement ORCID References Appendix