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This paper revisits the work on youth cultures and subcultures that emerged from Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (hereafter CCCS) during the 1970s. I engage with a number of recent critiques of the 'youth sub/cultures project', including Thornton's influential work on rave and club cultures and its troubled engagement with class. I argue that the focus of the youth sub/cultures project on mediated cultural practices through which young people constitute themselves and their (gendered, classed and racialised) positions remains of value, especially the emphasis on a 'symptomatic reading' that locates these processes in a 'conjunctural analysis'. I end by exploring the legacy of this project for understanding youth, class and culture in contemporary late modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on a case study of youthful British Pakistani Muslim women located in one of the largest Pakistani Muslim communities in the UK, in the city of Birmingham, to examine their narratives of urban space. These narratives illuminate the performance of gendered, Muslim, public spatialities, a term I use to refer to the spatial practices and personal geographies of the body and territory. I explore the ways in which the everyday life world that cuts across South Asian Muslim society and a public realm encoded with secular liberal democratic values configures the spatial ranges, practices, and personal geographies of youthful Pakistani Muslim women. I identify the ideological, material, and affective modalities through which these are given form at the intersection of place, 'race', gender, and religion. Finally, I illustrate the ways in which the dynamic multiethnic, multicultural milieu of Birmingham's 'Little Pakistan' localities offer youthful Pakistani Muslim women alternative repertoires for remaking the self, promoting cultural change and a greater sense of inclusiveness and belonging In doing so I foreground the fluidity and dynamic character of British South Asian Muslim cultures, contesting their representations as fixed and bounded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a combined quantitative and qualitative methodology to shed light on the previously unexamined female business owners of late nineteenth-century Birmingham. Examination of the Birmingham trade directories from 1849 to 1901 shows that women continued to enter the business community of late nineteenth-century Birmingham and owned a range of businesses. These findings suggest not only that women continued to trade in late nineteenth-century Birmingham as they had prior to 1849, but also that there was no marked deterioration in their opportunity to do so. Attention then turns to the personal and professional lives of some of the 20,000 businesswomen identified in the trade directories. Using a wide variety of sources, the article explores the professional achievements of the businesswomen, their familial and friendship networks, their assets, and their wealth distribution strategies. The results of this analysis demonstrate not only that businesswomen played a public role in the urban business economy of late nineteenth-century Birmingham, but that they acted first and foremost as business owners. This highlights the dangers of using gender as a way to describe the economic opportunities available to women in nineteenth-century England and emphasizes the importance of acknowledging commonality as well as difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the changing nature of Birmingham's Jewish com munity over a hundred-year period. By focusing on the ways in which Jews were portrayed by non-Jews and how Jews saw themselves, it attempts to illuminate the early history of the Jewish community at the end of the eighteenth century, including the synagogue as a focus of meaning; identity and organisation; how Jews and non-Jews related to one another; Jewish collective action to defend and promote their interests; the importance of funeral rituals and burial; rich and poor Jews; and Jewish women. Jewish experiences and representations not only throw light on the history of AngloJewry, but illuminate the attitudes, fears and prejudices of Birmingham's British society and ways in which others are portrayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the conceptions of subjectivity and social practice in cultural studies undertaken by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham in England. It attempts to address the issue of how subjectivities are forged and how persons emerge and change through engagement in social practice. It traces the history of the Centre and examines the challenges faced by CCCS researchers in exploring class cultures. The various factors which challenged the dominance of class analysis at the Centre, including the concept of poststructuralism and postmodernism are discussed.