No longer "on parade": Style and the performance of skinhead in the Russian far north

Russian Review

Volumn 69, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 187-209

  Pilkington, Hilary ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77952203632     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: 14679434     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9434.2010.00562.x     Document Type: Review

References (77)

1. Since a key argument in this article is that "skinhead" has no temporally or spatially fixed meaning, no a priori definition of skinhead is adopted. For the epigraph see L. Androsova, "Interview with a Skinhead," the eXile, November 15, 2001, www.exile.ru/2001-November-15/ feature-story.html (last accessed November 14, 2006)
2. T. Brown, "Subcultures, Pop Music, and Politics: Skinheads and 'Nazi Rock' in England and Germany," Journal of Social History 38:1 (2004): 160
3. M. Healy, Gay Skins: Class, Masculinity and Queer Appropriation (London, 1996)
4. S. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (New York, 2001), 82
5. V. Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii (Moscow, 2002), 109, 115
6. A. Tarasov, "Britogolovie idut," Russkii kur'er (June 18, 2004): 12
7. David Moore distinguishes between the visual style of skinheads ("hairstyles, clothing, and tattoos") and their "performative style," which are ritual practices, such as fighting, in which skinheads engage in order to provide evidence of their skinhead commitment and identity (D. Moore, The Lads in Action: Social Process in an Urban Youth Subculture [Aldershot, 1994], 17)
8. J. Clarke, "The Skinheads and the Magical Recovery of Community," in Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain, ed. S. Hall and T. Jefferson (London, 1993), 102, 99, 100. The exaggerated form this style took, Clarke argues, was itself a product of the fact that the real bases of solidarity of that community were already so undermined that what young people drew on was only an image of it
9. J. Clarke, "Style," in Resistance through Rituals, 179
10. P. Cohen, "Subcultural Conflict and Working Class Community," Working Papers in Cultural Studies, no. 2 (Birmingham, 1972), 24-25
11. D. Hebdige, "This is England! And they don't live here," in Skinhead, ed. N. Knight (London, 1982), 28-29
12. D. Hebdige, Skinhead, Ibid., 32
13. J. Clarke, "The Skinheads and the Study of Youth Culture," CCCS Stencilled Occasional Paper, no. 23, (Birmingham, 1973), 6-7
14. Hebdige, "This is England!" 29
15. G. Pearson, "'Paki-bashing' in a North East Lancashire Cotton Town: A Case Study and Its History," in Working Class Youth Culture, ed. G. Mungham and G. Pearson (London, 1976), 48-81
16. Moore, Lads in Action
17. K. Farin, Skinhead. A Way of Life: Eine Jugendbewegung stellt sich selbst dar (Berlin, 2005)
18. A second wave of ska music, in the form of Two-Tone, was also a key element of second wave skinhead (G. Watson, Skins and Punks [New York, 2008])
19. Both Oi! and Two-Tone also had musical roots in punk, but unlike Oi!, Two-Tone remained a racially mixed scene committed to transracial dialogue (L. Back, "Wagner and Power Chords: Skinheadism, White Power Music, and the Internet," in Out of Whiteness: Color, Politics, and Culture, ed. V. Ware and L. Back [Chicago, 2002], 106)
20. See also J. Moore, Skinheads Shaved for Battle: A Cultural History of American Skinheads (Madison, 1993)
21. and Brown, "Subcultures, Pop Music, and Politics."
22. Back, "Wagner and Power Chords," 106
23. R. Griffin, "From Slime Mould to Rhizome: An Introduction to the Groupuscular Right," Patterns of Prejudice 37:1 (2003): 32
24. See, for far-right political associations, Griffin, "From Slime Mould to Rhizome," 32
25. Moore, Skinheads Shaved for Battle
26. T. Bjørgo and R. Witte, eds., Racist Violence in Europe (Houndmills, 1993)
27. and J. Kaplan and T. Bjørgo, eds., Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture (Boston, 1998)
28. For the role of music see H. Lööw, "White-Power Rock 'n' Roll: A Growing Industry," in Nation and Race, 126-47
29. And for translocal dimensions see L. Back et al., "Racism on the Internet: Mapping Neo-Fascist Subcultures in Cyberspace," in Nation and Race, 73-101
30. See A. Tarasov, "Porozhdenie reform: britogolovie, oni zhe skinkhedy," Svobodnaia mysl' 21:4 (2000): 39-53
31. Shenfield, Russian Fascism
32. Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii
33. A. Umland, "Concepts of Fascism in Contemporary Russia and the West," Political Studies Review 3:1 (2005): 34-49
34. M. Sokolov, "Natsionalbol'shevistskaia partiia: Ideologicheskaia evoliutsiia i politicheskii stil'," in Russkii natsionalizm: Ideologiia i nastroenie, ed. A. Verkhovskii (Moscow, 2006), 139-64
35. M. Varga, "How Political Opportunities Strengthen the Far Right: Understanding the Rise in Far-Right Militancy in Russia," Europe-Asia Studies 60:4 (2008): 561-79
36. and A. Verkhovsky, "Future Prospects of Contemporary Russian Nationalism," in Russian Nationalism and the National Reassertion of Russia, ed. M. Laruelle (London, 2009), 89-103
37. Data collected and analyzed by the Sova Center on racist violence - widely attributed to, although far from exclusively the work of, "skinheads" - show that the number of hate crimes has grown year on year; the number of deaths annually has risen from 49 in 2004 to 97 in 2008, and the total number of victims from 267 to 525. See G. Kozhevnikova, "Radikal'nyi natsionalizm v Rossii i protivodeistvie emu v 2007 godu," Sova Center Report, February 7, 2008, http://xeno.sova-center.ru/29481C8/ A91EC67#r5 (last accessed June 26, 2009)
38. and G. Kozhevnikova, idem, "Radical Nationalism in Russia in 2008, and Efforts to Counteract It," Sova Center Report, 2009, http://xeno.sova-center.ru/6BA2468/6BB4208/CCD6D21 (last accessed April 20, 2009)
39. A. Tarasov, "Skinheads ou naturel," Neprikosnovennii zapas 5:7 (1999), available at http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/1999/5/taras.html (last accessed October 2, 2008)
40. A. Grishin, "Skinhead Russia," Moscow News, September 6, 2007, www.mnweekly.ru/national/20070906/55273681.html on (last accessed September 10, 2007)
41. L. Kürti, "The Emergence of Postcommunist Youth Identities in Eastern Europe: From Communist Youth, to Skinheads, to National Socialists and Beyond," in Nation and Race, 181
42. Tarasov, "Porozhdenie reform," 44, 45
43. Verkhovsky, "Future Prospects of Contemporary Russian Nationalism," 92
44. A. Tarasov, "Britogolovie idut," 1, 12-13
45. See A. McRobbie and J. Garber, "Girls and Sub-Cultures: An Exploration," in Resistance through Rituals, 209-22
46. G. Clarke, "Defending Ski-Jumpers: A Critique of Theories of Youth Sub-Cultures," CCCS Stencilled Occasional Paper, no.71 (Birmingham, 1982)
47. republished in abridged form in K. Gelder and S. Thornton, eds., The Subcultures Reader (London, 1997), 175-80
48. S. Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital (Cambridge, England, 1995)
49. A. Bennett, "Subcultures or Neo-Tribes? Rethinking the Relationship between Youth, Style, and Musical Taste," Sociology 33:3 (1999): 599-617
50. and D. Muggleton, Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style (Oxford, 2000)
51. Healy, Gay Skins
52. A. Nayak, "'Pale Warriors': Skinhead Culture and the Embodiment of White Masculinities," in Thinking Identities: Ethnicity, Racism and Culture, ed. A. Brah et al. (Basingstoke, 1999), 71-99
53. Nayak, "White Lives," in Racialization: Studies in Theory and Practice, ed. K. Murji and J. Solomos (Oxford, 2005), 141-62
54. See also J. Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London, 1999), 187-88
55. The subversive nature of gay appropriations of skinhead style - argued for also by D. Bell et al. - remains disputed not least, as M. Lloyd notes, because while the drag performance overtly questions the naturalness of gender through exaggeration and hyberbole, in the case of gay skinhead we are asked to understand the nature of subversion as resting in the gay skinhead's ability to pass as straight. See D. Bell et al., "All Hyped Up and No Place To Go," Gender, Place, and Culture 1:1 (1994): 33
56. and M. Lloyd, Beyond Identity Politics: Feminism, Power, and Politics (London, 2005), 140
57. Nayak, "White Lives," 151
58. Nayak, "Pale Warriors," 94
59. H. Pilkington, E. Omel'chenko, and A. Garifzianova, Russia's Skinheads: Exploring and Rethinking Subcultural Lives (forthcoming from Routledge)
60. This project was funded within the European Community's Sixth Framework programme (STREP-CT-CIT5-029013) and coordinated by Egidija Ramanauskaite- Kishkina, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania (see http://sal.vdu.lt/). The article reflects only the author's views and the Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein
61. The significance of place in shaping these young lives is discussed in detail in Pilkington et al., Russia's Skinheads (forthcoming), chap. 2
62. and in H. Pilkington and E. Sharifullina, "The Mutual Extraction Industry: Drugs and the Normative Structure of Social Capital in the Russian Far North," International Journal of Drug Policy 20 (2009): 251-60
63. All statistical material in this section is based on national and regional official data from http://komi.gks.ru/r01/NASELEN-gr2.htm; http://komi.gks.ru/r02/NASELEN-gr.htm; http://vorcuta.ru/industry.htm; http://komi.gks.ru/r03/Ur-gizz.htm; http://www.gks.ru/gis/D-02.htm; http://www.gks.ru/bgd/regl/b07-16/IssWWW.exe/Stg/02-10.htm; http://www.gks.ru/ bgd/regl/b07-13/IssWWW.exe/Stg/d01/04-23.htm; and http://www.gks.ru/bgd/regl/ b07-13/IssWWW.exe/Stg/d02/06-09.htm
64. See Knight, Skinhead, 11
65. A. Bennett, "Punk's Not Dead: The Continuing Significance of Punk Rock for an Older Generation of Fans," Sociology 40:2 (2006): 225
66. J. Clarke, "Style," 182
67. A. Verkhovsky, "Anti-Extremist Legislation, Its Use and Misuse," Sova Center Report, 2008, available at http://xeno.sova-center.ru/ 6BA2468/6BB4208/B577A2C (last accessed January 16, 2009)
68. A. Tarasov, "Skinkhedy v usloviiakh vneshnego davleniia: Sluchai Naberezhnikh Chelnov," in Tsena nenavisti: Natsionalizm v Rossii i protivodeistvie rasistskim prestupleniiam, ed. A. Verkhovskii (Moscow, 2005), 173
69. M. David et al., "Troubling Identities: Reflections on Judith Butler's Philosophy for the Sociology of Education," British Journal of Sociology of Education 27:4 (2006): 422
70. A. Nayak and M. J. Kehily, "Gender Undone: Subversion, Regulation, and Embodiment in the Work of Judith Butler," British Journal of Sociology of Education 27:4 (2006): 460-61
71. J. Clarke et al., "Subcultures, Cultures, and Class: A Theoretical Overview," in Resistance through Rituals, 47
72. P. Watson, "Eastern Europe's Silent Revolution: Gender," Sociology 27:3 (1993): 471-87
73. E. Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York, 1985), 3
74. These practices are "homosocial" in as much as they constitute social bonds between persons of the same sex. The question of whether they are "homosocial" in the sense that they contain the element of desire that re-establishes a continuum between male homosociality and homosexuality, as Sedgwick argues in Between Men, 1
75. This explains why tattoos are discussed here as an aspect of "performative" style in contrast to Moore, who considers them as elements of "visual" style (Lads in Action, 17)
76. N. Condee, "Body Graphics: Tattooing the Fall of Communism," in Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society since Gorbachev, ed. A. M. Barker (Durham, 1999), 343
77. Pilkington and Sharifullina, "Mutual Extraction Industry."