Gangs, Gangsters and Ganglands: towards an ethnographic comparison of gangs

Drawing on ground-breaking, multi-sited, collaborative ethnographic research in Nicaragua, South Africa, and France, as well as the comparison of 35 gang member life histories from Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, it will explore how and why individual, group, and contextual factors articulate together under different conditions to determine distinct types of gang trajectories and outcomes.

The project explores gangs at different level - the individual, the group and the societal context - across different context to have a broad and comparative understanding of gangs, gang development and consequences of gangs.