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Wannabes, Goths, and Christians: The Boundaries of Sex, Style, and Status
On college campuses and in high school halls, being white means being boring. Since whiteness is the mainstream, white kids lack a cultural identity that’s exotic or worth flaunting. To remedy this, countless white youths across the country are now joining more outré subcultures like the Black- and Puerto Rican–dominated hip-hop scene, the glamorously morose goth community, or an evangelical Christian organization whose members reject campus partying.
Amy C. Wilkins’s intimate ethnography of these three subcultures reveals a complex tug-of-war between the demands of race, class, and gender in which transgressing in one realm often means conforming to expectations in another. Subcultures help young people, especially women, navigate these connecting territories by offering them different sexual strategies: wannabes cross racial lines, goths break taboos by becoming involved with multiple partners, and Christians forego romance to develop their bond with God. Avoiding sanctimonious hysteria over youth gone astray, Wilkins meets these kids on their own terms, and the result is a perceptive and provocative portrait of the structure of young lives.
Amy C. Wilkins’s intimate ethnography of these three subcultures reveals a complex tug-of-war between the demands of race, class, and gender in which transgressing in one realm often means conforming to expectations in another. Subcultures help young people, especially women, navigate these connecting territories by offering them different sexual strategies: wannabes cross racial lines, goths break taboos by becoming involved with multiple partners, and Christians forego romance to develop their bond with God. Avoiding sanctimonious hysteria over youth gone astray, Wilkins meets these kids on their own terms, and the result is a perceptive and provocative portrait of the structure of young lives.
294 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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March 25, 2012I wrote this book so what am I going to say? Reading the book reminded me how fantastic it is to write a book, especially compared to writing articles. I am ready to write another one.
April 28, 2009
Labels—freak, geek, wigger, poser, prep, to name just a few—are plentiful and ever-expanding, flourishing in the fertile social grounds of high school and college. Often, labels are used against individuals, assigned and branded as tools of marginalization and preservation of social hierarchies. Amy C. Wilkins' Wannabes, Goths, and Christians: The Boundaries of Sex, Style, and Status is a sociological text that explores the ways labels can rather be symbols of resistance, or attempted empowerment, for three distinct subcultures coexisting in an insulated but diverse cross-section of a Northeastern college region.
Wannabes, Goths, and Christians is about the ways in which three groups of young adults in the United States test, push, and break the boundaries of an identity that paradoxically remains largely invisible, yet overwhelmingly dominant: "Whiteness." The self-described “freaks” of Goth, the members of a Christian organization at a large university, and the Puerto Rican "wannabes" are each given their due in a book that creates connections between seemingly disparate groups. Even those readers who are not sociologists by study or trade will appreciate the candor and perception with which Wilkins writes about the subjects of the book, as well as her forward-thinking analysis surrounding the important, but often overlooked, intersections of race, class, and gender within these predominantly white communities.
To write it, Wilkins engaged in countless interviews; some were formally conducted and others were casual conversations, not only with the subjects themselves, but also with their more mainstream peers, whose reactions and opinions spoke volumes about the way the strategic separation from the norm of Goths, Christians and wannabes elicits often volatile emotions from those who wish they would "act like what they are."
As much as possible, Wilkins tried to assimilate into these countercultures, whether by sexing up her appearance in black lace and dramatic Goth makeup, or by gelling her hair back and drawing on dark lip-liner to achieve the stereotypically Puerto Rican look of the wannabe. With her transformations complete, she would hit specifically geared club nights with her new tutors, subjects who had agreed, sometimes hesitantly, to take her under their wings and show her the ropes. Unexpectedly, the group that, of the three, prides itself most on kindness and goodwill was the hardest group to penetrate; Wilkins writes that although the University Unity Christians allowed her to attend meetings and agreed to speak with her in interviews, they were reserved, hesitant to open up, and never fully accepted her as an insider.
Wilkins effectively digs to the core of how subcultures are formed and fostered, particularly among young, white, middle-class people. In the United States, where society at large collectively fails to acknowledge the way white youth experience a broad spectrum of race, class, and gender, "whiteness" amounts to a lack of culture, in an environment that equates culture with "cool." In unique ways, the subjects of Wannabes, Goths, and Christians are eschewing what they see as a bland and narrow path of lack, in favor of a performed, chosen identity that may open up new alternatives to the umbrella of white identity. Wilkins insightful, fresh, sociologically focused portraits are much more than character studies, and the text is much more than tired "don’t judge a book by its cover" platitudes about today’s youth.
Review by Kelly Moritz
Wannabes, Goths, and Christians is about the ways in which three groups of young adults in the United States test, push, and break the boundaries of an identity that paradoxically remains largely invisible, yet overwhelmingly dominant: "Whiteness." The self-described “freaks” of Goth, the members of a Christian organization at a large university, and the Puerto Rican "wannabes" are each given their due in a book that creates connections between seemingly disparate groups. Even those readers who are not sociologists by study or trade will appreciate the candor and perception with which Wilkins writes about the subjects of the book, as well as her forward-thinking analysis surrounding the important, but often overlooked, intersections of race, class, and gender within these predominantly white communities.
To write it, Wilkins engaged in countless interviews; some were formally conducted and others were casual conversations, not only with the subjects themselves, but also with their more mainstream peers, whose reactions and opinions spoke volumes about the way the strategic separation from the norm of Goths, Christians and wannabes elicits often volatile emotions from those who wish they would "act like what they are."
As much as possible, Wilkins tried to assimilate into these countercultures, whether by sexing up her appearance in black lace and dramatic Goth makeup, or by gelling her hair back and drawing on dark lip-liner to achieve the stereotypically Puerto Rican look of the wannabe. With her transformations complete, she would hit specifically geared club nights with her new tutors, subjects who had agreed, sometimes hesitantly, to take her under their wings and show her the ropes. Unexpectedly, the group that, of the three, prides itself most on kindness and goodwill was the hardest group to penetrate; Wilkins writes that although the University Unity Christians allowed her to attend meetings and agreed to speak with her in interviews, they were reserved, hesitant to open up, and never fully accepted her as an insider.
Wilkins effectively digs to the core of how subcultures are formed and fostered, particularly among young, white, middle-class people. In the United States, where society at large collectively fails to acknowledge the way white youth experience a broad spectrum of race, class, and gender, "whiteness" amounts to a lack of culture, in an environment that equates culture with "cool." In unique ways, the subjects of Wannabes, Goths, and Christians are eschewing what they see as a bland and narrow path of lack, in favor of a performed, chosen identity that may open up new alternatives to the umbrella of white identity. Wilkins insightful, fresh, sociologically focused portraits are much more than character studies, and the text is much more than tired "don’t judge a book by its cover" platitudes about today’s youth.
Review by Kelly Moritz
January 19, 2009
I was extremely pleased with this book -- Wilkins does a masterful job (particularly for a book that I believe was adapted from her dissertation) of braiding together understandings of race, class, and gender in her analysis. She's particularly focused on how whiteness is dealt with, and especially in her first two cases -- where it's much less obvious -- Wilkins does an astonishing job of picking apart the ways in which a white identity is forged and preserved within these subcultures. Also as an ethnographer, she does a good job of bringing in enough of her own identity and giving a sense of how she worked with her informants without having this overwhelm the book.
The extent to which she brings in emotion and emotion management is likewise impressive and to my mind, marks a significant advance in this area. She mostly has to cite Hochschild here since that's sort of the foundational work for what she's discussing, but rather than looking at how emotion works in a top-down structure as does Hochschild, Wilkins does an amazing job of explicating how people manage emotion in their everyday lives as part of establishing and maintaining a group identity. I was worried the section on evangelical Christians would be uninteresting given my own feelings on these things, but actually it was probably the most fascinating of the three -- and again here, particularly because of the emphasis on emotion work.
The extent to which she brings in emotion and emotion management is likewise impressive and to my mind, marks a significant advance in this area. She mostly has to cite Hochschild here since that's sort of the foundational work for what she's discussing, but rather than looking at how emotion works in a top-down structure as does Hochschild, Wilkins does an amazing job of explicating how people manage emotion in their everyday lives as part of establishing and maintaining a group identity. I was worried the section on evangelical Christians would be uninteresting given my own feelings on these things, but actually it was probably the most fascinating of the three -- and again here, particularly because of the emphasis on emotion work.
August 13, 2008
This gets a little dry in places with the sociological analysis, but it also has a lot of interesting insights into these three groups/coping strategies. The book mostly deals with the groups one at a time, but there is some comparison between them. I found the analysis of goth culture especially interesting.
Bonus fact: I went to high school with the author's younger brother. We were in the same Spanish class.
Bonus fact: I went to high school with the author's younger brother. We were in the same Spanish class.
July 10, 2016
One of the best qualitative sociology research ethnographies that I have read and a MUST READ for any sociologists. I've also read many of Wilkin's sociological journal articles and she's one of my favorite sociologists. Great read for anyone interested in how young adults attempt to create a sense of belonging using subcultures such as Goths, Christians, and Puerto Rican Wannabes.
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