Gangs and Urban Genealogy

• In Event: The Role of Geography in How We View Gangs

Abstract

As the youth gang phenomenon becomes a sensitive global issue, communities across the world are facing the reality of what such violent groups mean for their children and young people. Complex dangers and instabilities, as well as high levels of public fear and anger, fuel an amplification of anxious public and political rhetoric in which the stereotype of the American gang looms large. In this context, an increasing level of research attention has focused on the development of universalised definitions of gangs in a global context. In this paper, I argue that this search for similarity has resulted in a failure to recognise and understand difference, obscuring the diverse meanings associated with gangs in different cultural contexts. In making this case, I draw principally from the fieldwork in Glasgow, Scotland, which has a history of territorial ‘gang’ identification that is particular to the city. Building on this example, I seek to develop a comparative approach to gangs in a global context that is rooted in the history, sociology and politics of different cities – an approach I call ‘urban genealogy’ – drawing from fieldwork experiences in Chicago, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Author

• Alistair Fraser, University of Glasgow