T-Shirts: Urban Language of Remembrance_____ 41
clothing in a new way. This reconstruction of traditional ways of behavior into
new forms is comparable to Dick Hebdige’s concept of bricolage in which
certain aspects of clothing in British culture have been reconfigured to give them
new meaning (61). In short, it was the act of wearing meaning-laden objects in
ways that is seen to violate customary modes of behavior. That is, T-shirt
wearers use these objects that are different from what individuals would
normally expect at such events.
The use of T-shirts as forms of cultural expression can reveal the way in
which those involved in these cultural methods view themselves in the larger
society. This perception can be placed within the topics of cultural politics and
cultural identity.
Cultural Politics
Barker and Galasinski define the term cultural politics “as a series of
collective social struggles organized around the nodal points of class, gender,
race. . . to describe the social in terms of specific values and hope for
consequences” (61). Within the definition of cultural politics, these analysts
consider a place for language in that they place older forms of language within a
new form and meaning. For these investigators, cultural politics is a way of
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