(p. viii). This involves investigating “the half-inarticulate, quasi-organis-
mic” dimensions of self that are “inscribed deep within the body through
progressive incorporation”that is to say, the “physical, cognitive, emo-
tional, and conative” aspects of identity that are “implanted...through
direct embodiment” (Wacquant, 1995, pp. 493, 504).
By shifting focus away from cognition and narrative and onto bodily
knowledge,Bourdieu’s (1977)concept of habitus captures the “taste and
ache of [bodily] action” that figures so prominently into the formation of
identity (Wacquant, 2004, p. vii). Moving beyond conscious intentions,
meanings, and calculations, the habitus concept illuminates the disposi-
tional nature of self-identitythose “visceral experience[s] [which] trans-
cend linguistic expression”the knowledge of self that is “unutterable,
ephemeral, known onlydeep down”(Desmond, 2006, p. 389). Unlike scho-
lars oriented toward cognition and discourse, who associate identity with
the narratives that we “keep going,” Bourdieu’s work illuminates how iden-
tity derives from lived, bodily experiences that linger below the surface of
conscious awareness. In this view, the self is ingrained into one’s mind and
flesh in a deeper wayas a form of corporal knowledge.Bourdieu (1977)
thus emphasizes how the body does not merely accumulate experience: what
the body learns, he argues, is ultimately what the social actor becomes.
As a subculture oriented around the pursuit of self-discovery and
“authentic” identity, punk offers fertile ground for examining the social-
psychological processes through which young people construct and confirm
stable identities. And as a subculture that revolves around the dynamics of
physically intensive concerts that call upon the senses, act upon the body,
and generate ecstatic emotional states, it also offers fertile ground for
exploring the role that embodied experiences and ritual performance play
in the process (Hancock & Lorr, 2013).
PUNK SUBCULTURE AND THE POSTMODERN
PURSUIT OF SELF
Punk emerged between 1976 and 1977 in the United States and the United
Kingdom. Beginning as a musically oriented subculture associated with the
Sex Pistols and the Ramones, participants adopted an obscene style that
sought to offend the conventions and sensibilities of “mainstream” society.^4
Early studies of punk suggested that cultural strain and class-based
inequality motivated identification with and participation in the subculture
168 PHILIP LEWIN