The Emotional Experience of Class: Interpreting Working-Class Kids’ Street Racing in Helsinki

Reproduction of social class through culture has puzzled social scientists especially in the Nordic, advanced welfare states where social equality has been the official policy of governments for most of the postwar period. In the following article, I address this issue through the emotional experience of class that culminates in the weekend excesses of youths and even the street-racing scenes of Helsinki. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with eighteen- to twenty-four-year-old male street racers of Helsinki, I argue that stagnant class locations build on stunted ambition and feelings of injustice. The cultural performances and camaraderie of these like-minded racers support these youths’ public, carefree identities and subcultural careers. Instead of resisting exclusion, they conform to it, celebrating “a room of his own†where shared risk, craftsmanship, driving skill, and disregard of education prevail.