Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T17:33:47.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Becoming the ‘Baddest’: Masculine Trajectories of Gang Violence in Medellín

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2017

ADAM BAIRD Open the ORCID record for ADAM BAIRD [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing upon 40 life-history interviews with gang members in Medellín, Colombia, this paper argues that many young men join gangs to emulate and reproduce ‘successful’ local male identities. The accumulation by the gang of ‘masculine capital’, the material and symbolic signifiers of manhood, and the accompanying stylistic and timely displays of this capital, means that youths often perceive gangs to be spaces of male success. This drives the social reproduction of gangs. Once in the gang, the youths become increasingly ‘bad’, using violence to defend the gang's interests in exchange for masculine capital. Gang leaders, colloquially known as duros or ‘hard men’, tend to be the más malos, the ‘baddest’. The ‘ganging process’ should not be understood in terms of aberrant youth behaviour; rather there is practical logic to joining the gang as a site of identity formation for aspirational young men who are coming of age when conditions of structural exclusion conspire against them.

Spanish abstract

Basándose en 40 entrevistas de historias de vida con miembros de pandillas en Medellín, Colombia, este artículo sostiene que muchos jóvenes se unen a estas agrupaciones para emular y reproducir identidades masculinas locales ‘exitosas’. La acumulación de parte de la pandilla del ‘capital masculino’, los significantes materiales y simbólicos de hombría, y el despliegue tanto oportuno como de estilo de este capital, significa que los jóvenes con frecuencia perciben a las pandillas como espacios de éxito masculino. Esto impulsa a la reproducción social de las pandillas. Una vez en una pandilla, sus integrantes se van volviendo cada vez más ‘malos’ utilizando la violencia para defender los intereses de la agrupación a cambio de capital masculino. Los líderes de las pandillas, conocidos coloquialmente como los ‘duros’, tienden a ser los ‘más malos’. El proceso de ‘pandillerización’ no debe ser entendido en términos de comportamiento juvenil aberrante, sino que existe una lógica práctica para unirse a una pandilla como espacio de formación identitaria para jóvenes con ciertas aspiraciones que van madurando de esta forma cuando las condiciones de exclusión estructural conspiran en su contra.

Portuguese abstract

Baseando-se em 40 entrevistas com membros de gangues em Medellín, Colômbia, sobre suas histórias de vida, este artigo propõe que muitos homens jovens juntam-se a gangues para emular e reproduzir identidades masculinas locais de ‘sucesso’. A acumulação de ‘capital masculino’ por parte das gangues, os significantes materiais e simbólicos da masculinidade, acompanhados da mostra tanto estilística quanto oportuna deste capital, significa que jovens geralmente percebem as gangues como espaços de sucesso masculino. Isto promove a reprodução social das gangues. Uma vez parte da gangue, os jovens tornam-se cada vez mais ‘maus’ e prontos a usar a violência para defender os interesses da gangue em troca de capital masculino. Líderes de gangues, coloquialmente conhecidos como ‘durões’ (duros), tendem a ser os ‘mais maus’ (más malos). O processo de constituição e manutenção das gangues não deve ser entendido em termos de comportamentos anormais de jovens; pelo contrário, existe uma lógica prática para unir-se a uma gangue como um espaço de formação de identidade para homens jovens e ambiciosos que estão chegando à idade adulta em momento no qual as condições de exclusão estrutural conspiram contra eles.

Keywords

gangsurban violenceyouth violencemasculinitiesmasculine capitalMedellínBourdieupandillasviolencia urbanaviolencia juvenilmasculinidadescapital masculinoMedellínBourdieuganguesviolência urbanaviolência juvenilmasculinidadescapital masculinoMedellínBourdieu
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 183 - 210
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Arias, Desmond and Goldstein, Daniel, Violent Democracies in Latin America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rodgers, Dennis, ‘Slum Wars of the 21st Century: Gangs, mano dura and the New Urban Geography of Conflict in Central America’, Development and Change, 40 (2009), pp. 949–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Baird, Adam, ‘The Violent Gang and the Construction of Masculinity amongst Socially Excluded Young Men’, Safer Communities, 11 (2012), pp. 179–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Rodgers, Dennis, ‘Living in the Shadow of Death: Gangs, Violence and Social Order in Urban Nicaragua, 1996–2002’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 38 (2006), pp. 267–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beall, Jo, Goodfellow, Tom and Rodgers, Dennis, ‘Cities and Conflict in Fragile States in the Developing World’, Urban Studies, 50 (2013), pp. 3065–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Sonja Wolf, ‘¿Hay terroristas en El Salvador?’, Distintas Latitudes, 6 Sept. 2015, http://www.distintaslatitudes.net/hay-terroristas-en-el-salvador (accessed 6 May 2017).

5 Daly, Martin and Wilson, Margo, ‘Risk-taking, Intrasexual Competition, and Homicide’, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 47 (2001), pp. 1–36 Google ScholarPubMed.

6 Higginson, Angela, Benier, Kathryn, Shenderovich, Yulia, Bedford, Laura, Mazerolle, Lorraine and Murray, Joseph, ‘Preventive Interventions to Reduce Youth Involvement in Gangs and Gang Crime in Low- and Middle-income Countries: A Systematic Review’, The Campbell Collaboration (2015)Google Scholar, at https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/library/youth-gang-prevention-low-middle-income-countries.html (accessed 6 May 2017).

7 Marie-Louise Glebbeek and Kees Koonings, ‘Between morro and asfalto. Violence, Insecurity and Socio-spatial Segregation in Latin American Cities’, Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.012 (accessed 6 May 2017).

8 Krug, Etienne, Dahlberg, Linda, Mercy, James, Zwi, Anthony and Lozano, Rafael World Report on Violence and Health: Summary (Geneva: WHO, 2002)Google Scholar; Liliana Bernal Franco and Claudia Navas Caputo, ‘Urban Violence and Humanitarian Action in Medellin’, Households in Conflict Working Paper no. 148 (2013), http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/hicwpaper/148.htm (accessed 6 May 2017).

9 Barker., Gary Dying To Be Men: Youth, Masculinity and Social Exclusion (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bourgois, Philippe, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Zubillaga, Veronica, ‘“Gaining Respect”: The Logic of Violence among Young Men in the Barrios of Caracas, Venezuela’, in Jones, Gareth A. and Rodgers, D. (eds.), Youth Violence in Latin America: Gangs and Juvenile Justice in Perspective (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)Google Scholar; Baird, Adam, ‘Negotiating Pathways to Manhood: Rejecting Gangs and Violence in Medellín's Periphery’, Journal of Conflictology, 3: 1 (2012), pp. 30–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The Violent Gang’.

10 Fraser, Alistair, ‘Street Habitus: Gangs, Territorialism and Social Change in Glasgow’, Journal of Youth Studies, 16: 8 (2013), pp. 970–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sandberg, Sveinung, ‘Street Capital: Ethnicity and Violence on the Streets of Oslo’, Theoretical Criminology, 12 (2008), pp. 153–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Karandinos, George, Hart, Laurie, Castrillo, Fernando Montero and Bourgois, Philippe, ‘The Moral Economy of Violence in the US Inner City: Deadly Sociability in the Retail Narcotics Economy’, in Auyero, Javier, Bourgois, Philippe and Scheper-Hughes, Nancy (eds.), Violence at the Urban Margins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 41–72 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Rodgers, Dennis and Hazen, Jennifer, ‘Gangs in Global Comparative Perspective’, in Hazen, Jennifer and Rodgers, Dennis (eds.), Global Gangs: Street Violence across the World (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), pp. 1–26 Google Scholar.

12 Many young men and women in these neighbourhoods do not join gangs, but this is not the focus of this particular article. For a debate on these issues see Baird, ‘Negotiating Pathways to Manhood’.

13 Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 [1977])Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., p. 72.

15 Wacquant, Loïc, ‘ Homines in Extremis: What Fighting Scholars Teach us about Habitus’, Body and Society, 20 (2014), pp. 3–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Swartz, D., Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 101Google Scholar.

17 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, p. 72.

18 Coles, Tony, ‘Negotiating the Field of Masculinity: The Production and Reproduction of Multiple Dominant Masculinities’, Men and Masculinities, 12 (2009), pp. 30–44 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Bourdieu, Pierre, The Logic of Practice (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), pp. 5–7 Google Scholar; Masculine Domination (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001)Google ScholarPubMed; Thomson, Pat, ‘Field’, in Grenfell, Michael (ed.), Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts (Durham: Acumen, 2008), pp. 67–81 Google Scholar.

20 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, pp. 5–7.

21 Ideas around perceived and appreciated structures in the field of production are drawn from Richard Nice's introduction to Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice.

22 Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, p. 66.

23 Gang members’ identities are therefore protected by pseudonyms chosen by the interviewees themselves. For an extended methodological discussion see Adam Baird (forthcoming), ‘Dancing with Danger: Ethnographic Safety, Male Bravado and Gang Research’, Journal of Qualitative Research (2017).

24 Sicarios are child or youth assassins. They came to prominence in the 1980s when drug cartels employed them as hit-men; sicario comes from Latin sicarius, meaning ‘man of the dagger’. Carritos are young gang members under the age of 15 who run errands for older, more senior, gang members, such as carrying guns, munitions, drugs and money around the neighbourhood, or acting as a look-out for rival gangs and the police; carrito literally means ‘trolley’ or ‘little cart’.

25 Interview with Miguel Tamayo, community social worker, 11 Sept. 2010.

26 Abello-Colak, Alexandra and Guarneros-Meza, Valeria, ‘The Role of Criminal Actors in Local Governance’, Urban Studies, 51 (2014), pp. 3268–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Gómez, Helí Ramírez, En la parte alta abajo (Medellín: Editorial Lealon, 1979), p. 10Google Scholar.

28 Estrada, William and Gómez, Adriana (eds.), Somos historia: comuna nororiental (Medellín: n.p., 1992), p. 177Google Scholar; Bernal Franco and Navas Caputo, ‘Urban Violence and Humanitarian Action’.

29 Interview with Mauricio, former gang leader, 20 June 2008.

30 Gay, Robert, ‘From Popular Movement to Drug Gangs to Militias: An Anatomy of Violence in Rio de Janeiro’, in Koonings, K. and Kruijt, D. (eds.), Mega-Cities: The Politics of Urban Exclusion and Violence in the Global South (London: Zed, 2009)Google Scholar; Pearlman, Janice, Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

31 Bedoya, Jairo, La protección violenta en Colombia: El caso de Medellín desde los años noventa (Medellín: Instituto Popular de Capacitación, 2010)Google Scholar.

32 Ardila, Ricardo Aricapa, Comuna 13: Crónica de una guerra urbana (Medellín: Editorial Universidad de Antioquia, 2005)Google Scholar; Franco, Gilberto Medina, Historia sin fin: las milicias en Medellín en la década del noventa (Medellín: Instituto Popular de Capacitación, 2006)Google Scholar.

33 Rodríguez, Clara Suárez, ‘Escenarios de homicidios 1990–2002’, Estudios Políticos, 26 (2005), pp. 185–205, here p. 203Google Scholar.

34 Interview with Doña Rosalba, community leader, 8 June 2007.

35 Interview with Armando, gang member, and Miguel Tamayo, community social worker, 18 June 2008.

36 Suárez Rodríguez, ‘Escenarios de homicidios 1990–2002’; Riaño-Alcalá, Pilar, Dwellers of Memory: Youth and Violence in Medellín, Colombia (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2006)Google Scholar.

37 Interview with Jarrón, gang member, 19 June 2008.

38 Garmany, Jeff, ‘Drugs, Violence, Fear, and Death: The Necro- and Narco-Geographies of Contemporary Urban Space’, Urban Geography, 32 (2013), pp. 1148–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Salazar., Alonso No nacimos pa'semilla: la cultura de las banda juveniles de Medellín (Bogotá: CINEP, 1990)Google Scholar; Gaviria, Víctor, El pelaíto que no duró nada (Bogotá: Editora Aguilar, 1991)Google Scholar; Franco, Jorge, Rosario Tijeras (Bogotá: Planeta, 2004)Google Scholar.

40 Riaño-Alcalá, Dwellers of Memory, p. 176.

41 Duran-Martinez, Angelica, ‘To Kill and Tell? State Power, Criminal Competition, and Drug Violence’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59 (2015), pp. 1377–1402 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 1391.

42 Interview with Notes, gang member, 16 July 2008.

43 Interview with Armando, gang member, 18 June 2008.

44 Duran-Martinez, ‘To Kill and Tell?’, p. 14.

45 Interview with Fabio Acevedo Orlando Monsalve (not a pseudonym), 21 Nov. 2007.

46 Rozema, Ralph, ‘Urban DDR-processes: Paramilitaries and Criminal Networks in Medellín, Colombia’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 40: 3 (2008), pp. 423–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Duran-Martinez, ‘To Kill and Tell?’; Bernal Franco and Navas Caputo, ‘Urban Violence and Humanitarian Action’.

47 Kimmel, Michael, ‘Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity’, in Whitehead, S. and Barrett, F. (eds.), The Masculinities Reader (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), pp. 266–87Google Scholar; Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar.

48 Connell, Raewyn, Masculinities (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1995)Google Scholar; Messerschmidt, James and Connell, Raewyn, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity. Rethinking the Concept’, Gender and Society, 19, (2005), pp. 829–59Google Scholar; also see Bourdieu, Masculine Domination.

49 Gutmann, Matthew, ‘The Vicissitudes of Men and Masculinities in Latin America’, Men and Masculinities, 3 (2001), pp. 235–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gutmann, Matthew and Vigoya, Mara Viveros, ‘Masculinities in Latin America’, in Kimmel, M., Hearn, J. and Connell, R. W. (eds.), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), pp. 114–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lancaster, Roger, ‘“That We Should All Turn Queer?”: Homosexual Stigma in the Making of Manhood and the Breaking of a Revolution in Nicaragua’, in Parker, Richard and Aggleton, Peter (eds.), Culture, Society and Sexuality: A Reader (London: UCL Press, 1999), pp. 97–115 Google Scholar.

50 Greig, Alan, ‘Troublesome Masculinities: Masculinity in Trouble’, IDS Bulletin, 40 (2010), pp. 69–76, here p. 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Butler, Gender Trouble.

52 Gutmann, Matthew, The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Lancaster, Roger, Life is Hard: Machismo, Danger and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

53 Saldarriaga, Marta Cecilia Vélez, Los hijos de la gran diosa: Psicología analítica, mito y violencia (Medellín: Editorial Universidad de Antioquia, 1999)Google Scholar.

54 Mellström, Ulf, ‘Difference, Complexity and (Onto)epistemological Challenges in Masculinity Studies’, NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 10 (2015), pp. 1–4 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Amparo-Alves, Jaime do, ‘Narratives of Violence: The White ImagiNation and the Making of Black Masculinity in City of God’, Sociedade e Cultura, 12: 2 (2009), pp. 301–10Google Scholar.

56 Theidon, Kimberly, ‘Transitional Subjects: The Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of Former Combatants in Colombia’, International Journal of Transitional Justice, 1 (2007), pp. 66–90 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 71.

57 Fraser, ‘Street Habitus’, p. 982; Sudhir Venkatesh, Afterword in Hazen and Rodgers (eds.), Global Gangs, p. 284.

58 Atkinson-Sheppard, Sally, ‘The Gangs of Bangladesh: Exploring Organized Crime, Street Gangs and “Illicit Child Labourers” in Dhaka’, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 16: 2 (2015), pp. 233–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gayle, Herbert and Mortis, Nelma, Male Social Participation and Violence in Urban Belize: An Examination of their Experience with Goals, Guns, Gangs, Gender, God, and Governance (Belize City: Ministry of Education, 2010)Google Scholar; Higginson et al., ‘Preventive Interventions’.

59 Interview with Ceferino, gang member, 5 Nov. 2011.

60 Interview with Carritas, gang member, 16 July 2008.

61 Interview with Tino, gang member, 20 Nov. 2011.

62 Hagedorn, John, A World of Gangs (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), p. 132Google Scholar.

63 Interview with El Mono, gang member, 3 June 2008.

64 Interview with Mechudo, gang member, 3 June 2008. In 2010 Mechudo's brother El Loco and cousin El Mono were arrested and began serving terms in Bellavista prison for drug trafficking offences. I interviewed Mechudo on two other occasions between 2007 and 2012, and during this period was able to develop a relationship with him.

65 Panfil, Vanessa R. and Peterson, Dana, ‘Gender, Sexuality, and Gangs’, in Decker, Scott and Pyrooz, David (eds.), The Handbook of Gangs (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 2015), pp. 208–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Kimmel, ‘Masculinity as Homophobia’.

67 Dickson-Gomez, Julia, Bodnar, Gloria, Guevara, Aradenia, Rodriguez, Karla and Gaborit, Mauricio, ‘El remolque y el vácil: HIV among Street Gangs in El Salvador’, Journal of Gang Research, 13 (2006), pp. 1–26 Google Scholar.

68 Interview with El Mono, gang member, 17 July 2008.

69 Interview with José, former gang member, 20 July 2008.

70 Ibid.

71 Panfil and Peterson, ‘Gender, Sexuality, and Gangs’, p. 212; Peterson, Dana, ‘Girlfriends, Gun-Holders, and Ghetto-Rats? Moving beyond Narrow Views of Girls in Gangs’, in Miller, Shari, Leve, Leslie D. and Kerig, Patricia K. (eds.), Delinquent Girls: Contexts, Relationships and Adaptation (New York: Springer, 2012), pp. 71–84 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Medina, Juanjo, Ralphs, Robert and Aldridge, Judith, ‘Hidden behind the Gunfire: Young Women's Experiences of Gang-related Violence’, Violence against Women, 18 (2012), pp. 653–61CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

72 Riaño-Alcalá, Dwellers of Memory.

73 Exceptions include: Panfil and Peterson, ‘Gender, Sexuality, and Gangs’, p. 215; Isabel Aguilar Umaña and Jeanne Rikkers, Violent Women and Violence against Women: Gender Relations in the Maras and Other Street Gangs of Central America's Northern Triangle Region (Brussels: Interpeace/Initiative for Peacebuilding, 2012)Google Scholar; Adam Baird, ‘Duros and Gangland Girlfriends: Male Identity and Gang Socialisation in Medellín’, in Auyero et al. (eds.), Violence at the Urban Margins, pp. 112–32.

74 Adler, Alfred, Understanding Human Nature (London: Allen and Unwin, 1928)Google Scholar; Bloch, Herbert and Niederhoffer, Arthur, The Gang: A Study of Adolescent Behavior (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958)Google Scholar; Cloward, Richard and Ohlin, Lloyd, Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Panfil and Peterson, ‘Gender, Sexuality, and Gangs’, p. 220.

75 Ibid., p. 221.

76 Whitehead, Tony L., ‘Urban Low-Income African American Men, HIV/AIDS, and Gender Identity’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 11 (1997), pp. 411–47CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

77 Muncie, John, Youth and Crime (London: Sage, 2009)Google Scholar; Kersten, Joachim, ‘Groups of Violent Young Males in Germany’, in Klein, Malcolm, Kerner, Hans-Jurgen, Maxson, Cheryl and Weitekamp, Elmar (eds.), The Eurogang Paradox: Street Gangs and Youth Groups in the US and Europe (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), pp. 247–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bourgois, In Search of Respect; Vigil, James D., The Projects: Gang and Non-gang Families in East Los Angeles (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Jensen, Steffen, Gangs, Politics and Dignity in Cape Town (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

78 Venkatesh, Sudhir, Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets (New York: Penguin, 2008)Google Scholar; Alonso, Alejandro A., ‘Racialized Identities and the Formation of Black Gangs in Los Angeles’, Urban Geography, 25 (2004), pp. 658–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Florez, Eduardo Orozco, God's Gangs: Barrio Ministry, Masculinity, and Gang Recovery (New York: New York University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 Murji, Karim, ‘Gangsta Glamour: Youth, Violence and Racialised Masculinities’, in Lentin, Alana (ed.), Learning from Violence: The Youth Dimension (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2004), pp. 53–62 Google Scholar.

80 Atreyee Sen, ‘“For Your Safety”: Child Vigilante Squads and Neo-gangsterism in Urban India’, in Hazen and Rodgers (eds.), Global Gangs, p. 207.

81 Interview with Pepe, non-gang member, 11 April 2008.

82 Vigil, James off, Rainbow of Gangs (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Castells, Manuel, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, vol. 3: End of Millennium (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000)Google Scholar.

83 Jensen, Gangs, Politics and Dignity in Cape Town, p. 196.

84 Defined as ‘temporary work on the side’, rebusque also has the connotation of ‘search’, from the verb buscar.

85 Interview with Sammy, non-gang member, 3 June 2008.

86 Interview with Mechudo, gang member, 3 June 2008.

87 Interview with Sayayo, gang member, 30 Nov. 2011.

88 Interview with Cardenas, former gang member, 7 July 2006, in Bogotá.

89 On ‘subversive recodification’ of power relations as a micro-level subjective process, see Foucault, Michel, The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984, vol. 3: Power (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000), pp. 122–3Google Scholar.

90 Sierra, Salvador Cruz, ‘Violencia y jóvenes: pandilla e identidad masculina en Ciudad Juárez’, Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 76: 4 (2014), pp. 613–37Google Scholar; Baird, ‘The Violent Gang’.

91 Wacquant, Loïc, Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Holsten, James, ‘Spaces of Insurgent Citizenship’, in Cities and Citizenship (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 155–76Google Scholar.

92 Jenny Pearce, ‘Violence, Power and Participation: Citizenship in Contexts of Chronic Violence’, Institute of Develoment Studies Working Paper no. 274 (2006), at http://www.ids.ac.uk/publication/violence-power-and-participation-building-citizenship-in-contexts-of-chronic-violence (accessed 7 May 2017).

93 Rodgers, Dennis, ‘Youth Gangs as Ontological Assets’, in Moser, Caroline and Dani, Anis A. (eds.), Assets, Livelihoods, and Social Policy (Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, 2008), pp. 237–54Google Scholar.

94 This phenomenon is not restricted to Medellín. One example is that of jagos, or strongmen / gangsters, in Indonesia who play a role in maintaining local order. See Wilson, Ian, ‘The Biggest Cock: Territoriality, Invulnerability and Honour amongst Jakarta's Gangsters’, Indonesian Studies Working Papers, 13 (2010), pp. 1–19 Google Scholar.

95 Interview with Aristizábal, gang member, 15 July 2008.

96 On ‘push and pull’ factors see James A. Densley, ‘Joining the Gang’, in Decker and Pyrooz (eds.), The Handbook of Gangs, pp. 235–56.

97 Interview with Pepe, non-gang youth, 11 April 2008.

98 Glebbeek and Koonings, ‘Between morro and asfalto’, p. 4.

99 The carrito was interviewed on 19 June 2008.

100 Interview with Havana, gang member, 12 June 2008.

101 Garot, Robert, ‘Gang-banging as Edgework’, Dialectical Anthropology, 39 (2015), pp. 151–63, here p. 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 E.g. Messerschmidt, James W., Crime as Structured Action: Gender, Race, Class, and Crime in the Making (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hagedorn, John, ‘Frat Boys, Bossmen, Studs, and Gentlemen: A Typology of Gang Masculinities’, in Bowker, Lee H. (ed.), Masculinities and Violence (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998), pp. 152–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103 Interviews with Notes, gang member, 16 July 2008 and Rasta, gang member, 12 Nov. 2011.

104 Curtis, Deborah, Pleasures and Perils: Girls’ Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

105 Interview with José, former gang member, 20 July 2008.

106 Interview with Mechudo, gang member, 3 June 2008.

107 Donny Meertens, ‘Conflicto armado exacerba el machismo’, El Espectador, 21 Dec. 2014, at http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/paz/el-conflicto-armado-exacerba-el-machismo-donny-meertens-articulo-534172 (accessed 7 May 2017); Theidon, ‘Transitional Subjects’; Kirby, Paul and Henry, Marsha, ‘Rethinking Masculinity and Practices of Violence in Conflict Settings’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 14 (2012), pp. 445–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ortega, Dietrich, ‘Looking beyond Violent Militarized Masculinities’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 14 (2012), pp. 489–507 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

108 Lancaster, ‘That We Should All Turn Queer?’, p. 108.

109 For a discussion see Baird, ‘Negotiating Pathways to Manhood’.

110 Interview with Negra, former girlfriend of a gang member, 11 Oct. 2011.

111 Dickson-Gomez et al., ‘El remolque y el vácil’.

112 Interview with Pelicorto, non-gang member, 10 June 2008.

113 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, p. 6.

114 Ibid., p. 5.

115 Ibid., p. 6.

116 Ibid.

117 On commodities and identity formation see Curtis, Pleasures and Perils.

118 Interview with Femina, former gang member girlfriend, 13 Oct. 2011.

119 Zubillaga, ‘Gaining Respect’.

120 Interview with Havana, gang member, 12 June 2008.

121 Cruz Sierra, ‘Violencia y jóvenes’, p. 627.

122 On sexual violence and the gang also see Mo Hume and Polly Wilding, ‘“Es que para ellos el deporte es matar”: Rethinking the Scripts of Violent Men in El Salvador and Brazil’, in Auyero et al. (eds.), Violence at the Urban Margins, pp. 93–111; Totten, Mark, ‘Girlfriend Abuse as a Form of Masculinity Construction among Violent, Marginal Male Youth’, Men and Masculinities, 6 (2003), pp. 70–92 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bourgois, Philippe, ‘Everyday Violence of Gang Rape’, in Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Bourgois, Philippe (eds.), Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 343–7Google Scholar.

123 Baird, ‘Duros and Gangland Girlfriends’.

124 Interview with Jarrón, gang member, 19 June 2008.

125 Interview with Aristizábal, gang member, 15 July 2008.

126 Interview with Mechudo, gang member, 3 June 2008.

127 Interview with Mechudo, gang member, 12 Oct. 2011.

128 Interviews with Mechudo, gang member, 3 June 2008 and 12 Oct. 2011; with Sayayo, gang member, 30 Nov. 2011.