The Emergence and Maintenance of a Deviant Sub-Culture: The Case of Hunting/Poaching Sub-Culture

Few accounts of deviant properly examine their historical context and relationship to the dominant culture. This paper attempts to achieve both goals. It is an account of the social or ganization and practice of members of the hunting/poaching sub-cul ture in North America. An historical ethnographic description of poachers includes a description of the and the strategies adopted by members both to deal with the increasing technological sophistication of regulators and to achieve social control within their own small-scale group. Resume: II y a peu de recits concernant la sous-culture deviante qui examinent de fagon approfondie son context historique et sa relation avec la culture dominante. Cette etude entreprend d'achever ces deux memes buts en examinant l'organisation sociale et la pratique des membres d'une sous-culture de braconneurs en Amerique du Nord. Une etude historique et ethnographique de braconneurs decrit la sous culture et les strategies adoptees par les membres pour mieux combat tre les developpements technologiques utilises par les autorites et pour etablir un controle social parmi leur propre groupe a petite echelle. Sociology has made heavy use of the concept sub-culture in explaining and analyzing deviance. Generally, it is used to account for socially organ ized and patterned deviance as it exists in communities. The notion of sub culture helps to understand the apparent paradox of the immorality of devi ance and its continued existence. In spite of the importance of this concept, it remains a sensitizing concept that is barely analyzed and is, indeed, ig nored (McCarthy-Smith 1990). Some analysis of the emergence of deviant sub-cultures has appeared in the work of Cohen (1955), Kitsuse and Anthropologica XXXIII (1991) 177-194