The book Savages From Our Street. Anthropology of Youth Culture was published in 1999 by the Youth Research Centre of the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of Warsaw University. It was a habilitation dissertation of Barbara Fatyga. It was a summary of a nearly 10 years of research on youth culture conducted by Fatyga with the help of her students. During this research she founded an extensive archive. It contained fanzines, leaflets, posters, cassettes and other material connected to youth culture. Recordings and transcripts of interviews with members of various youth milieus are also a part of the collection, as well as press articles and clippings regarding the youth.
Fatyga’s work is based on the analysis of sources gathered in her archive. It offers an original methodological proposition for youth culture research. Unlike sociological concepts rendering youth as a social group, Fatyga formed an anthropological project, focused on the youth culture itself – its texts and experiences. She also addressed the youth protest of 1989-1993, interpreting them as a form of cultural expression. At the same time, the researcher used sociological (qualitative and quantitative) data on the Polish youth.
Youth culture was an indeed an important issue of contemporary culture in the 1980s and the 1990s . Exploring this problem allowed to understand wider cultural processes. Savages From Our Street is still one of the most important works on youth culture, alternative culture, youth subcultures and contemporary culture. Theoretical propositions and the methodology used in the book continue to inspire researchers.
