Drinking, the construction of ethnic identity and social process in a Western Australian youth subculture.

This paper presents an anthropological analysis of the meaning of drinking for the male members of the Skinhead youth subculture in Perth, Western Australia. Perth Skinheads are an exported and modified form of the original English Skinhead subculture. Using participant observation as the primary research method, the style of drinking is analysed as one of the ways in which the members of this subculture express their English ethnicity and constitutive of the social processes which underpin the subculture. The article also explores the reasons why Perth Skinheads do not conform to a pattern of drinking in rounds held to be characteristic of some working class drinking groups.