Abstract
This research work proposes to create a broader and less prejudicial visualization of some social groups of young people, in this specifically case of the HEM 26 gang, located in the neighborhood of San Felipe Hueyotlipan, Puebla, Mexico, which have been categorized in concepts that are not so favorable and that they have been stigmatized for most of their lives, without giving them the opportunity to demonstrate that their brotherhood goes beyond any preconceived concept of them. This research seeks to give them the space and everything that is within this group and the various forms of expression they represent to be made known in order to generate a new conceptualization of what the HEM 26 gang represents. From their graphic expressions to the most artistic ones, such as the music and their clothes, in this chapter the members of this gang and everything they represent will be better known and in that way be less stigmatized by the society around them.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
With this we are not trying to minimize the set of practices carried out by gangs; it would be a serious mistake to minimize violence in every sense, but when talking about these groups, it is common to place violence on one side. In other words, it is not to make an apology for violence, but neither to minimize it, the idea would be to understand the mechanisms of action to know the ways in which it is produced and reproduced.
- 2.
The complex issue of gangs undoubtedly requires a look at the different perspectives built in the United States. Indeed, in the last decades of the last century, and so far this century, the study of gangs has become an important topic within the social sciences, the importance of the works that have been carried out in that country. The importance is given by the set of empirical studies, but above all the attempt to theorize about the problem and offer, from this, perspectives and possibilities of comparison to pose new questions.
- 3.
Expressions:
-
“cholos”: Mexican expression that refers to a person of mixed race;
-
“mal viviente”: Mexican expression that refers to a person who lives badly, in poverty or miserably
-
low life; “montoneros”: Expression that refers to a group acting together for the same objective;
-
“huevones”: Mexican expression that refers to a lazy person or who does not like working.
-
- 4.
Mexican expression to assign the importance or to say: “I am the best,” “I am the boss,” “I am the most important member of the group or gang.”
- 5.
Another axis of exploration for the case of graffiti in different contexts is the one presented by Steven T. Olberg, regarding graffiti and urban art has to do with the use of these forms of communication as tools of resistance. In accordance with this idea, expressions serve both as a technique to resist and as one of identity conformation, which in the case of the subject under study helps us to understand both the meaning and the symbolic issue of appropriation of urban spaces.
- 6.
Interested readers can find Turek HEM material on Spotify and Youtube at the following links:
Bibliography
(INEGI), I. N. (2017). Anuario estadístico y geográfico de Puebla 2017. Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía.
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of resistance. Against tyranny of the market. The New Press-Polity Press.
Bourgois, P. (2005). Más allá de una pornografía de la violencia. Lecciones desde El Salvador. F. Ferrádiz y C. Feixa, Jóvenes sin tregua. Culturas y políticas de la violencia, pp. 11–34. : Anthropos.
Cerbino, M. (2004). Pandillas Juveniles: Cultura y conflicto en la Calle. El Conejo, Abya-Yala.
Cerbino, M. (2011). Jóvenes víctimas de violencias, caras tatuadas y borramientos. Perfiles Latinoamericanos, 19(38), 9–38.
Cerbino, M. (2012). El lugar social de la violencia. Perspectivas críticas sobre pandillerismo juvenil. Taurus & FLACSO.
Feixa, C. (1999). De jóvenes, bandas y tribus. Antropología de la juventud. Editorial Ariel.
Foote-Whyte, W. (1993). Street corner society. The social structure of an Italian slum. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Frith, S. (2003). Música e identidad. In S. Hall & P. Du Gay (Eds.), Cuestiones de identidad cultural (pp. 181–213). Amorrontu.
Goffman, E. (2006). Estigma: la identidad deteriorada. Amorrontu.
Jaramillo Morales, J. D. (2015). Entrando y saliendo de la violencia: construcción del sentido joven en Medellín desde el graffiti y el hip-hop. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.
Kontos, L., & Brotherton, D. C. (2008). Encyclopedia of gangs. Greenwood Press.
Kontos, L., Brotherton, D. C., & Barrios, L. (2003). Gangs and society: Alternative perspectives. Columbia University Press.
Lewisohn, C. (2008). Street art. Tate Publishing.
Macdonald, N. (2001). The graffiti subculture: Youth, masculinity and identity in London and New York. Palgrave Macmillan.
Marcial, R. (2019). Images og gang bodies: Identity representations as a product of collaborative dialogue. Encartes antropológicos, 2, 75–99. http://www.encartesantropologicos.mx
Moreno Hernández, H. C. (2014). Pandillas transnacionales en El Salvador y Ecuador: criminalización versus integración. CLACSO.
Moreno Hernández, H. C., & Sánchez González, M. E. (2018). Homies Unidos: estrategias de reestratificación desde la sociedad civil. Universidad Iberoamericana.
Muñoz, G., & Martha, M. (2006). Music is the connection: Youth cultures in Colombia. In P. Nilan & C. Feixa (Eds.), Global youth? Hybrid identities, plural worlds (pp. 130–148). Routledge.
Olberg, S. T. (2013). Political graffiti on the West Bank wall in Israel/Palestine. The Edwin Mellen Press.
Perea Restrepo, C. M. (2007). Con el Diablo adentro: pandillas, tiempo paralelo y poder. Siglo XXI.
Reguillo Cruz, R. (2000). Emergencia de culturas juveniles: Estrategias del desencanto. Grupo Editorial Norma.
Restrepo, E. (2016). Etnografía: Alcances, técnicas y éticas. Envisión Editores.
Savenije, W. (2007). Informe de consultoría sobre definición y categorización de Pandillas-El Salvador. Secretaría de la Organización de los Estados Americanos.
Savenije, W. (2009). Maras y barras: Pandillas y violencia juvenil en los barrios marginales de Centroamérica. FLACSO Programa El Salvador.
Scheper-Hughes, N., & Bourgois, P. (2003). Violence in war and peace: An anthology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review, 51(2), 273–286.
Thompson, M. (2009). American graffiti. Parkstone International Press.
Trasher, F. (1963). The gang. In A study of 1313 gangs in Chicago. University of Chicago Press.
Valdez, A. (2003). Towards a typology of contemporary Mexican American youth gangs. In L. Kontos, D. C. Brotherton, & L. Barrios (Eds.), Gangs and society. Alternative perspectives (pp. 12–40). Columbia University Press.
Venkatesh, S. (2003). A note on social theory and the American street gang. In L. Kontos, D. C. Brotherton, & L. Barrios (Eds.), Gangs and society (pp. 3–11). Columbia University Press.
Vigil, J. D. (2007). The projects: Gang and non-gang families in East Los Angeles. The University of Texas Press.
Wacquant, L. (2001). Parias Urbanos: Marginalidad en la ciudad a comienzos del milenio. Ediciones Manantial.
Wacquant, L. (2004). Body & Soul: Notebooks of an apprentice boxer. Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Torres, R.S. (2021). HEM 26: Youth Representations and Cultural Production Against Stigmatization. In: Campos, R., Nofre, J. (eds) Exploring Ibero-American Youth Cultures in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83541-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83541-5_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-83540-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-83541-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)