DiY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties' Britain

Front Cover
George McKay
Verso, Jul 17, 1998 - History - 310 pages
Collective youth up trees or down tunnels, protest camps and all-night raves across the land—these are the spectacular features of the politics and culture of nineties youth in Britain. DiY Culture lays to rest the myth of “Thatcher’s children,” for the flags are flying again—green, red and black.

Editor George McKay claims that popular protest today is characterized by a culture of immediacy and direct action. Gathered together here for the first time is a collection of in-depth and reflective pieces by activists and other key figures in DiY culture, telling their own stories and histories. From the environmentalist to the video activist, the raver to the road protester, the neo-pagan to the anarcho-capitalist, the authors demonstrate how the counterculture of the nineties offers a vibrant, provocative and positive alternative to institutionalized unemployment and the restricted freedoms and legislated pleasures of UK plc.

From inside the book

Contents

Cartoons by Kate Evans
54
Viva camcordistas Video activism and the protest
79
The politics of antiroad struggle and the struggles
100
the subversive imagination
129
Earth First Defending Mother Earth directstyle
152
Reclaim the fields and country lanes The Land
174
the Exodus
187
the northern
208
The Great British Ecstasy revolution
228
free parties and the politics
243
Notes
269
Notes on contributors
299
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About the author (1998)

George McKay is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Salford, UK, where he is Director of the Communication, Cultural & Media Studies Research Centre. He writes on alternative cultures and identities—‘cultural studies with a soundtrack’ is how his website puts it—and his books include DiY Culture, Senseless Acts of Beauty, Glastonbury: A Very English Fair, Community Music: A Handbook (co-edited with Pete Moser), Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain, Radical Gardening: Politics, Idealism & Rebellion in the Garden, and Shakin’ All Over: Popular Music and Disability. He maintains his own website at georgemckay.org.