Abstract:
How is the relevance of performing selves in youth cultures to be described against the background of increasingly complicated transitions into adulthood? The study has its theoretical fundament in a precise analysis of biographical transitions in late modern societies. Empirically, it is based on semi-structured interviews with young male and female activists of a local Goa-trance community. Out of this material the biographical relevance of performing selves is developed in four relevant dimensions: communities of practice, bodies, spaces, and gender identities. Alongside these dimensions, youth cultural practices are generating agency, belonging, and meaningfulness.
In the concluding chapter five levels of theoretical insights are worked out: first, the relevance of considering performing selves in an action theory on biographical transitions, second their relevance with regard to a theory of social integration, third their relevance for conceptualizing modernised gender relationships, fourth their relevance for conceptualizing intergenerational relationships, and fifth their relevance for theory and practice of social pedagogy.