The afterlife of punk: Evental sites of punk 77

Abstract

Building on the argument of my previous article ‘Autonomy and agency: The event of punk 77’, this article defends the continuing political relevance of punk. Rejecting the dominant story that punk was a utopian, short-lived revolution, over before it had a chance to effect any social change, I argue that punk survives through people who, radicalized by its vision of cultural agency, motivate revolutionary ‘ways of being’ committed to realizing and transmitting that vision to others. The subjects of 77 are heir to a revolutionary tradition, choosing to ‘keep’ punk ‘alive’ through fidelity to its inaugural event; a fidelity that involves renewed acknowledgement of the ‘subversive’ dimension of the event’s original ‘epochal rupture’. Two case studies are offered in support of this argument. An account of the eruption of a punk scene in the provincial town of Drogheda in Ireland in the early 1980s, followed by discussion of the specific way punk engaged young women, a case study based on interviews with Gina Birch, founding member of first-generation all-female punk band the Raincoats. I conclude by recasting the legacy of punk as a tradition of revolutionary inheritance.