“We Didn't Invent Them”: The Development of Subcultural Identity among Deadheads

Abstract

The deadhead subculture – centered around the band Grateful Dead – has been active for 50+ years. Despite its longevity, academic work is sparse compared to other music subcultures. Given its durability and resilience, this subculture offers an opportunity to explore subcultural development and maintenance. I employ a contemporary, symbolic interactionist approach to trace the development of deadhead subculture and subcultural identity. Although identity is a basic concept in subculture research, it is not well defined: I suggest that the co-creation and maintenance of subcultural identity can be seen as a dialectic between collective identity and symbolic interactionist conceptions of individual role-identity.

Citation

Smith, S. (2022), "“We Didn't Invent Them”: The Development of Subcultural Identity among Deadheads", Conner, C.T. (Ed.) Subcultures (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 54), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 7-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-239620220000054002