Research › Centres and Programmes › Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) › Events › Workshops › Global Gangs

Global Gangs Workshop

Date of Workshop:
14 - 15 May 2009

Location:
Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP)
Rue Rothschild 20, Geneva, Switzerland

 

 

Judith Aldridge

Judith Aldridge is Senior Lecturer in the School of law, University of Manchester , UK . Her research has centred on youthful drug use, and she is co-author of Illegal Leisure: the Normalisation of Adolescent Recreational Drug Use (Routledge 1998, second edition forthcoming), and Dancing on Drugs (Free Association Books 2001). She was Principal Investigator on an ESRC funded ethnographic study of youth gangs in an English city, the data from which is currently being analysed. She collaborated with Home Office researchers in Britain to produce 'gang' questions for the 2004 and 2005 Youth Offending Crime and Justice Survey, resulting in the first nationally representative data on gangs and co-offending. Judith's current research interests are in relation to drug dealing and other ways of 'doing business' within gangs, and in the 'economies' of drug dealing networks.

 

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Enrique Desmond Arias

Desmond Arias is an Associate Professor of Government, at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and serves on the faculty of the Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research focuses on security and politics in developing societies. In 2006, the University of North Carolina Press published Drugs and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro : Trafficking, Social Networks, and Public Security. Articles related to this project have been published in the Journal of Latin American Studies, Qualitative Sociology, and Latin American Politics and Society. He is currently conducting research on the impact of gangs and other armed groups on politics in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil , Medellín , Colombia , and Kingston , Jamaica . United States Fulbright Commission, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation have provided funding for this research. He is also completing a study of police reform in Latin America . An article on the policing project is forthcoming in Comparative Politics.

 

Submitted Paper:

Gangs in Brazil

 

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José Miguel Cruz

José Miguel Cruz has been the director of the University Institute of Public Opinion at the University of Central America (Universidad Centroamericana) in San Salvador for twelve years, and member of the Editorial Board of the academic journal Estudios Centroamericanos (ECA). He has been professor of Social Psychology in the Psychology department at the University of Central America and at the Universidad de El Salvador . He has also lectured at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras, and Lund University , Sweden . He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Pan-American Health Organization and the United Nations Development Program in the topic of Central American violence and gangs. He has been working on maras since 1996, and has published several books and articles in Spanish about Central American gangs. He holds a Master degree in Public Policy in Latin America from Oxford University , England . These days, José Miguel is working on his doctoral dissertation in Political Science at Vanderbilt University , works for the Latin America Public Opinion Project and is involved in research projects on Latin American political culture, democratization, and violence. His last edited book, Street Gangs in Central America (UCA Editores, San Salvador, 2007), summarizes an eight-year-long research project on gangs in the Central American region.

 

Submitted Paper:

Global Gangs in El Salvador

 

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Julia Eckert

Julia Eckert is Professor for Political Anthropology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and head of the research group ‘Law against the State' at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany which examines the juridification of protest and the globalisation of transnational legal norms. Her research interests are in legal anthropology, the anthropology of the modern state, conflict theory, and social movements. She has just completed a research project on the police in Mumbai , India , focusing on everyday conflicts over norms of justice, citizenship and authority. Among her publications on this research are “ The Trimurti of the State ” in: Sociologus 2005; “ From Subject to Citizen: Legalism from below and the Homogenisation of the Legal Sphere ” in: Journal of Legal Pluralism 2006. Her work on a Hindu-nationalist movement in India resulted in her book The Charisma of Direct Action (Oxford University Press, 2003) and “ Urban governance and emergent forms of legal pluralism in Mumbai ” in: Journal of Legal Pluralism 2004. Other than India , s he conducted research in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan . She was a researcher at the German Institute for international pedagogical research, Frankfurt am Main, and lecturer at the Humboldt University, Berlin and the Free University of Berlin from where she holds a PhD.

 

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John Hagedorn

John Hagedorn is Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice, and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Illinois-Chicago 's Great Cities Institute. He has been studying gangs and violence for the past twenty years. He is the author of People & Folks: Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City (Lakeview Press, 1988), editor of Gangs in the Global City: Alternatives to Traditional Criminology ( University of Illinois Press , 2007), and co-editor of Female Gangs in America : Essays on Girls, Gangs, and Gender (Lakeview Press, 1999). His most recent book is A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Culture ( University of Minnesota Press , 2008). Much of his research is online at: http://gangresearch.net/.

 

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Jennifer Hazen

Jennifer Hazen has been a Senior Researcher at the Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva , Switzerland , since December 2007. She holds a BA in political science from the University of Michigan , Ann Arbor (USA) and an MA and PhD in international relations from Georgetown University (USA). Prior to joining the Small Arms Survey, she was an Assistant Professor in the International Peace Studies program at the UN-mandated University for Peace, Costa Rica . She has previously served as a Political Affairs Officer with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and as an analyst with International Crisis Group in their West Africa office. She has also worked as a consultant for various international and national organizations. She has been working in the fields of US foreign policy, international relations, and conflict studies since 1994, and has focused her research on armed groups and intrastate conflicts since 2000. Her research interests include: conflict dynamics, armed groups, network analysis, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peacebuilding.

 

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Steffen Jensen

Steffen Jensen is a senior researcher at the Rehabilitation and Research Center for Torture Victims (RCT) in Copenhagen as well as associated to the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (Wiser) in Johannesburg. He has published on issues of violence, gangs, vigilante groups, human rights, urban and rural politics, as well as on the relationship between security and development in rural and urban South Africa. He has recently published the monograph Gangs, Politics and Dignity in Cape Town . The work on human rights and state violence results in 2009 in an edited volume entiled State Violence and Human Rights: State Officials in the South from Routledge. From 2008 he has been co-managing a research programme on youth mobilisation and violent organisation with case studies from Nepal, Bangladesh, Kenya and Guinea Bissau. For the programme, he will do additional field work in the Philippines.

 

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Gareth Jones

Gareth Jones is Senior Lecturer in Development Geography at the London School of Economics. Gareth has undertaken consultancy for DfID, UNCHS, the Department of Housing of Government of South Africa, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He has served as trustee of a number of NGOs, is a Joint Editor of the Journal of Latin American Studies and a former Director of the MSc Urbanisation and Development at LSE. His research interests relevant to the theme of the conference relate to youth and development (Jones et al, Bringing Youth into Development, Zed, 2010), youth and violence (Jones and Rodgers, Youth Gangs and Juvenile Justice in Latin America , Palgrave, 2009) and the identities of street youth. The latter follows a three year project funded by the ESRC on identities entitled "'Being in Public': The multiple childhoods of Mexican 'street' children”. A book manuscript on the project is in preparation but the following publications are available. 

2009. Villains or Victims? Gangs, Violence and Daily Life in Mexico, with H. Castillo Berthier, in G.A. Jones and D. Rodgers (eds) Youth Violence in Latin America: Gangs and Juvenile Justice in Perspective , Palgrave-Macmillan, New York..

2009. Bodies on the Line: identity markers among Mexican street youth, with Herrera, E. and S. Thomas de Benitez, Children's Geographies , Vol.7. No.1.

2008. Children and Development II: Youth, Violence and Juvenile Justice, Progress in Development Studies , 8, 4, 345-348.

2007. Tears, Trauma and Suicide: everyday violence among street youth in Puebla, Mexico, with E. Herrera and S. Thomas de Benitez, Bulletin of Latin American Research , 26, 4, 462-479.

 

Submitted Paper:

Hecho en Mexico: Gangs and Public Security over time, and now

 

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Marwan Mohammed

Marwan Mohammed est docteur en sociologie, il a soutenu sa thèse sur le rôle et la place des familles dans la formation des bandes de jeunes à l'université Versailles-Saint-Quentin. Il effectue actuellement un post-doctorat au Centre d'étude sociologique sur le droit et les institutions pénales (CESDIP) sur les sorties de bandes. Par ailleurs, il est enseignant en sociologie au département de sciences politiques de l'université Versailles-Saint-Quentin, responsable du séminaire « déviances et prévention ». Il participe également à la formation continue du personnel judiciaire, du travail social et de la police. Parallèlement au phénomène des bandes, ses travaux portent sur les rapports entre famille et délinquance, ainsi que sur les émeutes urbaines et la ségrégation sociale. A ce titre, il a récemment participé à une recherche comparative franco-britannique sur les émeutes ( riots ), qui donnera lieu à la publication prochaine d'un ouvrage coordonné par Dave Waddington, Fabien Jobard et Mike King ( Rioting in the UK and France, 2001-2008: A Comparative Analysis , Uffculme (UK), Willan Publishing). Au sujet des bandes, il prépare un ouvrage intitulé La formation des bandes de jeunes. Entre la famille, l'école et la rue (à paraître, 2009, Paris, PUF), il a codirigé avec Laurent Mucchielli l'ouvrage Les bandes de jeunes, des "Blousons noirs" à nos jours (2007, Paris, La Découverte).

 

Submitted Paper:

Changement social et bandes du jeunes en France

 

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David Pratten

Dr David Pratten's ethnography is based on a decade of engagement with Annang villagers in south-eastern Nigeria . The themes of his research concern historical memory and relations between state and society. He has been developing this focus in two related projects. First, he has a produced a multi-stranded approach to the study of the multiple impacts and responses called into being by colonial rule in Nigeria . The focus of this work is an historical ethnography of the events surrounding a series of mysterious deaths in south-eastern Nigeria during the late 1940s which is shortly to be published by the International African Institute. Second, his current research builds on this study and examines youth, democracy and disorder in post-colonial Nigeria . In its focus on the practice of vigilantism and the role of a new masquerade cult, it explores the politically ambiguous social mechanisms through which young people articulate claims and rights and engage with the postcolonial state.

Dr Pratten's major publications include a monograph on the investigations into ritual murders in colonial Nigeria : "The Man-Leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria" published by Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, 2007. He has also co-edited a volume of essays on vigilantism: "Global Vigilantes: Perspectives on Justice and Violence" which was published by Hurst & Co., 2007. He has also edited two recent journal special issues. One is on ‘Perspectives on Vigilantism in Nigeria ' in the journal ' Africa ' (Vol. 78.1 2008) and the other is is on the influence of Michel de Certeau's theories on anthropologists published in Social Anthropology (Vol. 15.1 2007). 

 

Submitted Paper:

The Agaba Boys: Gang Culture and Radical Insecurity in Nigeria

 

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José Luis Rocha Gomez

José Luis Rocha Gómez is Senior Researcher at the Central American University (UCA) in Managua , Nicaragua and associate Researcher with the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester, UK . His work focuses on issues relating to youth gangs, local government, disaster prevention and management, the coffee industry, and migration. He is a member of the editorial committees of the academic journals Envío and Encuentro , and is also the Research Coordinator of the Central American Jesuit Refugee Service. His publications include the bilingual Spanish/English book Una Región Desgarrada: Dinámicas Migratorias en Centroamérica/A Region Torn Apart: The Dynamics of Migration in Central America (San José: Lara Segura, 2006); “Mapping the labyrinth from within: The political economy of Nicaraguan youth policy concerning violence”, Bulletin of Latin American Research , 27(4): 533-549, 2007; and (with Ian Christoplos) “Disaster mitigation and preparedness on the Nicaraguan post-Mitch agenda”, Disasters , 25(3): 240-250, 2001. His most recent works on youth gangs are “Lanzando piedras, fumando ‘piedras'. Evolución de las pandillas en Nicaragua 1997-2006", UCA Cuaderno de Investigación no. 23, December 2007; and (with Dennis Rodgers) Gangs of Central America ( Managua : Envío-UCA, 2008).

 

Submitted Paper:

Nicaragua's Youth Gangs are Tangled in the Puppeteer's Strings

 

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Dennis Rodgers

Dennis Rodgers is a social anthropologist by training, with a BA and a PhD from the University of Cambridge , as well as a postgraduate degree from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva , Switzerland . He is currently Senior Research Fellow in the Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI) , at the University of Manchester, UK.

Prior to joining BWPI, he was lecturer at the London School of Economics, in development studies (2000-05), and urban development (2005-07). He has also worked as a consultant for various international and national organisations, and was a member of a Nicaraguan youth gang for a year, as well as manager of a market stall selling rice and beans in one of Managua 's markets for six months. Dennis was born in Thailand , and holds French, British and Swiss citizenship. In addition to being affiliated with the CCDP, he is also a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics, an Associate Fellow of the University of London Institute for the Study of the Americas , and Associate Editor of the European Journal of Development Research .

 

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Loren Ryter

Loren Ryter is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Michigan. His research has focused on modern Indonesian politics in comparative historical perspective. He is particularly interested in the emergence of ambiguous relationships between youth groups, the military, and crime in Indonesia and their broader implications for the study of state and society and civil-military relations. His dissertation, ³Youth, Gangs, and the State in Indonesia² (University of Washington, 2002) and published work such as ³Pemuda Pancasila: The Last Loyalists of Soeharto¹s Order?² (in Violence and the State in Suharto¹s Indonesia, 2001) have developed these themes. During the Winter Semester 2009, he is teaching a course called Criminality, Power, and Culture in Southeast Asia.

 

Submitted Paper:

Youth Gangs and Otherwise in Indonesia

 

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Alexander Salagaev

Alexander Salagaev is a Professor, Head of Social and Political Conflict Studies in State Technological University ( Kazan , Russian Federation ), Director of Center for Analytic Studies and Development, expert of UN. His pre-doctoral study was dedicated to leadership and authority issues whereas his doctoral thesis explored various issues of youth criminal gangs in Russia . Professor Salagaev is an author and co-author of several books and articles on Russian youth gangs and delinquent subcultures, including ‘Youth subcultures' (1997), ‘Youth offences and delinquent communities in American sociological theories'(1997), ‘The Eurogang Paradox. Street Gangs and Youth Groups in the U.S. and Europe ' (2001) and ‘Narcotisation in Tatarstan: the strategies of social action' (2003). Alexander Salagaev is a grantee of Fullbright, Finnish Academy , Ford and NorFA. Alongside with being social researcher Professor Salagaev is a member of Common Chamber of Tatarstan Republic of Russia and a member of Anti-Corruption Comission.

 

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Mats Utas

Mats Utas is Associate Professor in Cultural Anthropology at the Nordic Africa Institute as well as the Head of the Africa Programme at the Swedish National Defence College. He has worked as a lecturer in social and cultural anthropology at University of Liberia and Stockholm University, as well as senior lecturer in sociology at Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone). Utas has written extensively on child and youth combatants, media, refugees and gender in conflict and war zones. He has conducted fieldwork in Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast. He is the co-editor (with Henrik Vigh and Catrine Christiansen) of Navigating youth - generating adulthood: social becoming in an African context (the Nordic Africa Institute 2006). His current research is on urban poverty and street-corner youth in urban Sierra Leone.

 

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James Diego Vigil

James Diego Vigil, Professor of Social Ecology (Department of Criminology, Law, and Society) at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from UCLA (1976) and has held various teaching and administrative positions. As an urban anthropologist focusing on Mexican Americans and U.S. ethnic minorities, he has conducted research on ethnohistory, education, culture change and acculturation, and adolescent and youth issues, especially street gangs. This work has resulted in such publication as From Indians to Chicanos: The Dynamics of Mexican American Culture 2nd Edition (Waveland Press, 1998), Personas Mexicanas: Chicano Highschoolers in a Changing Los Angeles (Ft Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1997), Barrio Gangs (University of Texas Press, 1988), A Rainbow of Gangs: Street Cultures in the Mega-City (U. Texas, 2002), The Projects: Gang and Non-Gang Families in East Los Angeles (U. Texas, 2007), and articles in journals such as Harvard Educational Review, Hispanic Journal of the Behavioral Sciences, Human Organization, Social Problems, Aztlan, and Ethos. Current research activities include fieldwork in Chiapas, Mexico tracing peasant adaptation to the city, and continuing data collection looking at schooling and academic achievement among high school students in East Los Angeles, particularly the most marginal students that are prone to dropping out. A new book, “Stopping Gangs with a Balanced Strategy: Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression (Waveland Press, 2009) will be out this coming Fall, 2009.

 

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Lening Zhang

Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Sociology at State University of New York at Albany in 1995. Currently he is Professor in the Department of Sociology/Criminal Justice and Director of The Rural Center for Applied Social, Health and Behavioral Research, Saint Francis University. Before he joined Saint Francis University in 1997, he served as a post-doctoral researcher for a longitudinal study of substance abuse and delinquency among young men at the Research Institute on Addictions, Buffalo.

Dr. Zhang has published over 50 articles in professional journals and co-edited a book on crime and social control in China (2001). He has also completed a number of research projects contracted by federal government agencies in the area of public health. Recently, Dr. Zhang has served as a co-principal investigator for a research project on criminal victimization in contemporary urban China. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a grant of $300,000. It successfully collected primary data from 2,500 households in the city of Tianjin, China, in 2004. So far, seven high-quality publications have been produced using the data. Recently, Dr. Zhang has also edited a special issue “Crime and Criminal Justice in China: The Current Knowledge Base and Prospects for Future Research” for Crime, Law and Social Change: An Interdisciplinary Journal , Vol. 50 (3), 2008. The special issue includes eight articles that provide critical reviews of studies in eight major areas of China's crime and criminal justice since 1990.

Currently, Dr. Zhang is serving as a research consultant for a research project on adolescent drunk-driving, which was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He has also served as a referee for a variety of professional journals such as American Sociological Review,  Social Forces, Social Problems, Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and  Journal of Studies on Alcohol .

 

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