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Despite drawing on a large body of different paradigms, subcultural studies have been conceptualizing subcultures rather uniformly as a world in itself, a reaction to dominant society or a combination of both. In our paper, we argue for more encompassing theoretical view, we call the relational perspective. Inspired by symbolic interactionism and studies on identity and alterity, while building on concepts devised in post-subcultural studies, we claim that particular subcultures are delineated in respect to many different actors. These can be roughly classified into categories of mainstream, other subcultures and enactments of one's own subculture. Grounded in empirical research of punk and emo subcultures and employing the concepts of in/authenticity (based on subcultural capital formed by subcultural style, ideology and practice), we will show the possibility of application of this perspective in studying contemporary subcultural formations both diachronically and synchronically.

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