CfP: International Conference on Subcultures (02–03.10.2026, University of Oviedo, Spain), Deadline 15.05.2026
Since the emergence of the concept of subculture within the Chicago School in the early twentieth century, and through its subsequent reformulations in terms of music scenes and urban tribes, along with related notions such as fields, fan cultures, and musical worlds, these entities have been understood as key sites where the tensions and conflicts pervading contemporary popular culture become particularly visible and intensified. These tensions include, among others, the opposition between radical independence and co-optation by the cultural industries; processes of continuity, appropriation, resignification, and aesthetic rupture of shared cultural references; and the interplay between cultural consumption and political activism.
Such formations are heterogeneous, with diffuse boundaries and a high degree of symbolic density. They not only reflect and contest structural inequalities but also (re)produce internal power relations and hierarchies of distinction. Their common ground lies in the articulation of collective identities, shared practices, and specific forms of symbolic and material production.
From a historical and theoretical perspective, the study of these phenomena has produced a wide range of concepts and analytical categories with distinct genealogies, each foregrounding different dimensions, including identity construction and symbolic opposition to the norm; processes of organization and cultural production across diffuse spaces and temporalities; situational forms of belonging; dynamics of distinction and mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion; as well as the spatial, infrastructural, and technological aspects of social action. These dynamics cannot be understood without considering the dynamics of mediatization, digitalization, and platformization that are increasingly shaping contemporary popular culture, from historical forms of media appropriation to current digital environments, social networks, and platforms.
In this sense, the analysis of subcultures, scenes, and urban tribes occupies a point of intersection across multiple disciplines—such as Sociology, Cultural Studies, History, Musicology, Communication, Anthropology, Cultural Geography, and the Arts and Humanities—as well as across different methodological approaches and epistemological positions. The conference aims to embrace this diversity and to foster a lively and productive intellectual transdisciplinarity, opening up new questions, pathways, and research horizons.
For these reasons, we invite scholars and experts working in the fields of subcultures, music scenes, and urban tribes to submit paper proposals within the following thematic areas:
Concepts, categories, and theorization. Debates on the theorization of subcultures, music scenes, urban tribes, neo-tribes, fan cultures, and related notions, considering their conceptual genealogies across disciplines including Sociology, Musicology, Ethnomusicology, and Cultural Studies. Contributions may address analytical uses and limitations, boundaries and overlaps between categories, as well as theoretical shifts resulting from recent cultural, social, and/or media transformations. Reflections on musical categories such as genre, style, canon, distinctions between underground and mainstream, authenticity, hybridization, and performativity are particularly welcome.
Digital cultures, video games, media ecologies, and platforms. Analyses of digital cultures and the mediatization of subcultures and scenes across platforms and social networks such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and others, including streaming practices and digital DIY modes of production and distribution. This strand also welcomes contributions on video games as spaces of musical socialization and as hybrid scenes at the intersection of play, performance, and music. In addition, papers may explore alternative forms of communication such as free radio, community media, and non-hegemonic media, with a focus on their aesthetic and musicological implications for the shaping of scenes, identities, and sonic practices.
Creativity, emerging technologies, and artificial intelligence. Reflections on cultural creativity, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies within music scenes, addressing issues of authorship, agency, value, and identity, as well as the redefinition of concepts such as musical work, composer, performer/performance, and listening. Contributions may analyze the aesthetic, ethical, and political implications of processes of cultural production, circulation, and legitimation. From a musicological perspective, particular attention will be given to approaches that examine how these technologies reconfigure sonic practices, scenes, imaginaries, and power relations within musical subcultures.
Spaces, territories, and urban and rural studies. Studies on cultural spaces and geographies of music, with pa articular focus to urban studies and to the frictions between urban and rural contexts in the emergence of music scenes and subcultures. Contributions are invited to address the production of soundscapes and acoustic memories, as well as the role of cultural infrastructures such as venues, rehearsal spaces, and record shops. Papers may also examine
dynamics of exchange, tension, or feedback between the local and the global, including migration, translocal circuits, cultural tourism, and urban policies, from perspectives ranging from musicology to anthropology, art, and cultural studies.Situated, mixed, collaborative, and visual methodologies. Methodological approaches and applications for the study of subcultures and music scenes. This strand welcomes ethnographies, autoethnographies, aca-fan approaches, oral histories and archival research, digital methods, network analysis, and mapping, as well as experimental devices for the production of musicological knowledge. Particular emphasis is placed on lived experience, collaborative work, and dialogue between scenes and communities.
Memory, musical heritage, nostalgia, and revival. Analyses of processes of heritagization and related phenomena such as nostalgia, authenticity, and revival. Contributions may address music across different formats, media, and recording editions, as well as practices of collecting and re-listening. This strand also considers disputes surrounding archives, tradition and innovation, and the role of narratives, images, and cultural products in the construction of subcultural temporalities, shared memories, and forms of intergenerational transmission.
Political economy, cultural labor, and alternative media. Research on the political economy of music scenes, cultural labor and fan labor, precarity, professionalization, and (self)exploitation in creative contexts. Papers may examine relationships between cultural industries and underground production circuits, as well as the role of alternative media in the material and symbolic sustainability of subcultures.
Bodies, gender, queerness, and political action. Studies of embodiment, musical performance and live events, gender and queerness, ethnicity, and class from intersectional perspectives, addressing mechanisms of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, internal power relations, and their explicit and implicit forms of regulation. Contributions are invited to explore the links between music scenes, social movements, activism, and cultural resistance, with attention to sound, the body, and performance as spaces of identity negotiation and collective action.
Photography, fashion, and other artistic media. Artistic practices related to urban cultures, scenes, and subcultures. Contributions may focus on visual aesthetics, iconographies, and processes of creation, circulation, and consumption, as well as the role of the body and staging in the construction of identities. Analyses exploring dialogues between art, design, media, and social contexts are welcome, with attention to continuities, ruptures, and reappropriations.
Urban popular music. Studies of popular urban music contexts from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Contributions may analyze scenes, circuits, and spaces of sociability, as well as relationships between music, cultural policies, the music industry, and the media. Papers are also invited on lyrics, aesthetics, and practices; processes of circulation, appropriation, and resignification of transnational influences; and the role of these musics in the construction of urban identities, generational conflicts, dissidence, and cultural memory.
Audiovisual media. Contributions addressing film, television, documentaries, music videos, and other audiovisual formats from a broad musicological perspective. This strand welcomes semiotic analyses, studies of consumption, reception, and audience participation, as well as research on the identification of repertoires, periods, compositional processes, musical and subcultural aesthetics, and forms of media dissemination. Case studies on intermedial transits, exchanges, and cultural dialogues, comparative studies across different countries, and analyses of music creation and licensing in audiovisual contexts are also encouraged.
Film, photography, and music festivals and live events. Studies on concerts and festivals of film, photography, and music, focusing on programming strategies, patterns of consumption, audience participation, fandoms, organizational and management models, and artistic curation. This strand includes research on large-scale festivals, independent festivals, alternative circuits, and community-based initiatives. Particular attention will be given to contributions that explore the role of these events as spaces of cultural mediation, sonic experimentation, and articulation between music, image, and territory.
Proposals for the conference should be sent by email to congresosubculturas@gmail.com, with the subject line “PROPUESTA DE COMUNICACIÓN UNIOVI 2026”, and should include a single PDF file containing: an abstract of no more than 250 words; a short biographical note of up to 150 words; an indication of up to three thematic strands to which the proposal relates. Proposals may be submitted in English, Spanish, Portuguese, or any of the co-official languages of Spain. Only in-person presentations will be accepted, as the conference will be held exclusively on site.
The submission deadline is 15 May 2026.
For any enquiries, please contact: congresosubculturas[at]gmail[dot]com