Homologies of Habitus: Gangs, Scale and a Global Sociological Imagination

Abstract

Across the globe, the phenomenon of youth gangs has become an important and sensitive public issue. In communities from Chicago to Hong Kong, Capetown to Glasgow, the real and perceived threat from highly visible, street-based groups of young people has come to dominate news headlines, policy guidelines and research agendas. In this context, an increasing level of research attention has focused on the issue of comparison – seeking out universalised definitions and methodologies in order to ascertain the scale of the global ‘gang’ phenomenon. In this paper, I argue that these approaches mask critical historical, cultural and structural differences between gangs in diverse geographical contexts, and that new theoretical lenses are required to capture the structural and cultural forces that shape these divergent trajectories. Drawing on fieldwork in Glasgow, Chicago and and Hong Kong, I argue that a multi-level conceptualisation of street culture – incorporating micro, meso and macro levels of analysis – is a productive way to develop such an approach. By applying a scalar logic to habitus, field and capital, I argue that gang research can cultivate a global sociological imagination that is grounded yet comparative.