Every social group must establish a unique place or set of places with which to facilitate and perpetuate its way of life and social organization. However, not all groups have an equal ability to do so. Rather, much of the physical environment is designed to facilitate the needs of the economy—the needs of exchange and capital accumulation—and is not as well suited to meet the needs of people who must live in it, nor for those whose needs are otherwise at odds with this dominant spatial order. Using punk subculture as a case study, this dissertation investigates how an unconventional and marginalized group strives to manage ‘place’ in order to maintain its survival and to facilitate its way of life despite being positioned in a relatively incompatible social and physical environment.
To understand the importance of ‘place’—a physical location that is also attributed with meaning—the dissertation first explores the characteristics and concerns of punk subculture. Contrary to much previous research that focuses on music, style, and self-indulgence, what emerged from the data was that punk is most adequately described in terms of a general set of concerns and collective interests: individualism, community, egalitarianism, antiauthoritarianism, and a do-it-yourself ethic. Next, the places most important to punk are explored: music venues. While the reliable use of such places is essential for the subculture, obtaining and maintaining use of a venue is no easy task and not all venues are equally well-suited to the subculture’s requirements. First, it is found that those spaces most culturally compatible with the values of the subculture are most ideal, corresponding with the conceptualization of ‘place.’ Such ideal places are organized non-hierarchically, promote creativity and individuality, and emphasis sociality and community bonds over profit. Second, it is found that the physical features of a venue are also important factors in determining the value of a given place to the subculture. Specifically, those features which facilitate social differentiation and regulation are found to be most problematic for punks, whereas features that facilitate interaction and intimacy are desirable.
Issues of place and space continue to be understudied, even though they are also universally experienced and universally relevant concerns that are taken-for-granted. For punks, and for any other social group, not all socio-spatial designs are universally beneficial. Rather, specific designs promote some social agendas as they attenuate others. For these reasons, researchers, planners, and policy makers alike should be increasingly aware of both the causes and consequences of place relative to a variety of social groups.