cultural resistance – Overt political protest is uncommon. When it occurs, it often results in a backlash. Even if overt political protest does results in changes in legislation, it won’t necessarily change public opinion. Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change.

‘The political, personal and cultural are always intertwined.‘

cultural hegemony (Antonio Gramsci) – the dominant culture, power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means. The ideologies of the dominant group are expressed and maintained through its economic, political, moral, and social institutions. These institutions socialise people into accepting the norms, values and beliefs of the dominant social
group. As a result, oppressed groups believe that the social and economic conditions of society are natural and
inevitable, rather than created by the dominant group.

subcultural theory – (the Birmingham school theory) In the 1970s, a group of cultural theorists in Birmingham applied Gramsci’s theories to post-war British working-class youth culture. They argued argued that the formation of subcultures offered young working class people a solution to the problems they were collectively experiencing in society.

Black music offered a means of articulating oppression and of challenging what Gilroy has termed, ‘the capitalist system of racial exploitation and domination’.