In the Country of the Blind?: Youth Studies and Cultural Studies in Britain

In this paper we look at the history of youth research and cultural studies in Britain, and consider the relationship between these two very different intellectual trajectories and traditions. We argue that the youth question is potentially at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary enquiry in the human sciences, that it has an important role to play in reconstituting the problematics of identity and modernity and that it serves to focus policy debates around a strategic nexus of social contradiction in post-colonial Britain. But we also suggest that until we transcend the narrow empiricism of most youth transition studies, and the theoreticism that continues to characterize the study of cultural texts, the youth question will continue to remain a side-show. The article concludes by outlining one possible approach that may help build bridges between youth studies and cultural studies in order to advance research beyond these limitations.