Abstract

This roundtable reflects on the relationship between knowledge and street cultures, starting from the militant research of Valerio Marchi. Welcoming the research perspectives that cross his independent production, the aim is firstly to recontextualize the questions Marchi posed over 20 years ago, and then to follow the links between his reflections and the general panorama of cultural studies. In doing this, we intend to interrogate the contradictions of the reception of conflicting and alternative themes and knowledge in the disciplinary world of university and research. The growing academic attention to authors/protagonists of autonomous cultural productions cannot in fact evade the complex question of the conflict between them and the research field, and the purposes inscribed in the institutional organization of research. Through the contributions of young scholars engaged in ethnographic research that cross the various declinations of «street cultures», it will be possible on the one hand to renew a careful look at symbolic conflicts and the ways in which daily criticism of expert knowledge is embodied; on the other hand, to bring out in its concreteness the intrinsic problematic nature of studying and analyzing countercultures within a non-neutral space such as that of academic production.