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The following is a proposed addition to Punk subculture and represents an attempt to include non Western perspectives in the article. As a part of my project for Education Program:Drake University/Global Youth Studies (Spring 2013) I am also considering an effective way to integrate the existing articles on individual youth subcultures (like Straightedge, Punk subculture, etc.) into the general youth subculture article itself.

Global Perspectives

Though punk subculture is typically associated with Western contexts, youth in the global south have appropriated the Western subculture to articulate local experiences. The fluidity of musical expression in particular makes it an ideal medium for this cross-cultural interpretation.

Mexico

In Mexico, punk culture is primarily a phenomenon among middle and upper class youth, many of whom were first exposed to punk music through travel to England. Because of low fees at public universities in Mexico, a significant minority of Mexican punks are university students. It is estimated approximately 5,000 young people are active punks in Mexico City, hosting two or three underground shows a week. These young people often form Chavos banda or youth gangs that organize subculture activity by creating formal meeting spaces and rituals and practices.

Oral nicknames are a distinguishing feature of Mexican punk, where the tradition of oral culture has influenced the development of nicknames for almost all Mexican punks. Patches are widely used as an inexpensive way to alter clothing and express identity. Though English language bands like the Dead Kennedys are well known in Mexico, punks prefer Spanish-language music or covers translated into Spanish. The slam dance style common in the California punk scene of the early 1980s is very popular.

Performance practices reflect socio-economic circumstances of Mexican punks. Called tocadas, shows are generally held in public spaces like basketball courts or community centers instead of places of business like bars and restaurants, as is more common in the United States and Europe. They usually take place in the afternoon and end early to accommodate the three or four hours it takes many punks to return home by public transit. Mexican punk groups rarely release vinyl or CD recordings, preferring cassettes.

Though Mexican punk itself does not have an explicit political agenda, Mexican punks have been active in the Zapatista Movement, Anarcho-punk Movement, and Anti-globalization movement.

South Africa

Punk arrived slowly in South Africa during the 1970s when waves of British tradesman welcomed by the then-apartheid government brought cultural influences like the popular British music magazine NME. NME was sold in South Africa six weeks after publication. South African punk developed separately in Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town and relied on live performances in townships and streets as the multi-racial composition of bands and fan bases challenged the legal and social conventions of the apartheid regime.

Political participation is foundational to punk subculture in South Africa. During the apartheid regime, punk was second only to rock in its importance to multi-racial interactions in South Africa. Because of this involvement in the punk scene was in itself a political statement. Police harassment was common and the government often forced censorship of explicitly political lyrics. Johannesburg based band National Wake was routinely censored and even banned for songs like "International News," which challenged the South African government's refusal to acknowledge the racial and political conflict in the country. National Wake guitarist Ivan Kadey attributes the punk scene's ability to perservere despite the legal challenges of multi-racial mixing to the punk subculture DIY ethic and anti-establishment attitude.

In post-apartheid South Africa, punk has attracted a greater number of white middle-class males. Thabo Mbeki's African Renaissance movement has complicated the position of white South Africans in contemporary society. Punk provides young white men the opportunity to explore and express their minority identity. Cape Town band Hog Hoggidy Hog sings of the strange status of white Africans:

It's my home it's where I'll stay and where I belong

I didn't choose to be here I was born I might seem out of place

but everything I hold dear is under the African sun.

Post-apartheid punk subculture continues to be active in South African politics, organizing a 2000 festival called Punks Against Racism at Thrashers Statepark in Pretoria. Rather than the sense of despondency and fatalism that characterized 1970s British punk subculture, the politically engaged South African scene is more positive about the future of South Africa.

Peru

In Peru punk traces its roots to the band Los Saicos, a Lima group that played the unique blend of garage and break dance music that would later be labeled punk as early as the 1960s. The early activity of Los Saicos has led many to claim that punk originated in Lima instead of the UK, as it typically assumed. Though their claim to be the first punk band in the world can be disputed, Los Saicos were undoubtedly the first in Latin America and released their first single in 1965. The group played to full houses and made frequent television appearances throughout the 1960s. A plaque that declares "here the global punk-rock movement was born" can be found at the corner of Miguel Iglesias and Julio C. Tello Streets in Lima.

By the 1980s the punk scene in Peru was highly active. Peruvian punks call themselves subtes and appropriate the subversive implications of the English term "underground" through the Spanish term subterraneo (literally, subterranean). In the 1980s and 1990s subtes made almost exclusive use of cassette recording as a means of circulating music without participating in formal intellectual property and musical production industries. The current scene relies on digital distribution and assumes similar anti-establishment practices. Like many punk subcultures, subtes explicitly oppose the Peruvian state and advocate instead an anarchic resistance that challenges the political and mainstream cultural establishment.