IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

442

Transnational gangs, between resistance and resilience (1)

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC34 Sociology of Youth (host committee)

Language: Spanish, French and English

Session Type: Oral

Gangs are described as an episodic phenomenon comparable across diverse geographical sites, with the US gang stereotype often operating as an archetype. Mirroring this trend, academic researchers have increasingly sought to survey the global topography of gangs through positivist methodologies that seek out universal characteristics of gangs in different cultural contexts.Following Thrasher’s classical definition, a gang is “an interstitial group originally formed spontaneously, and then integrated through conflict” (1927/2013, p. 57).This means that a gang is an informal group of locally rooted peers, in conflict with other peer groups, and sometimes with adult institutions. When delinquency was not considered as a fundamental attribute of youth street sociability, other concepts were used such as peer groups, street groups, subcultures, countercultures, lifestyles... reserving the term gang for street youth groups with members from migrant or ethnic minorities background and no for other youth groups. Because of this,when defining what a gang is, it is mandatory to refer both to the use of the term by informants and native actors -to their ‘emic’ meanings -and to their use by researchers and external actors -to their ‘ethic’ meanings. In addition, the terms and meanings may vary according to the geographical locations and subcultural traditions that we consider. The session call for papers related to theoretical, methodological and empirical researches on transnational gangs, in Latin America and beyond, in the continuum of resistance and resilience.