https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2127-2032
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ABSTRACT
This article aims to analyse the agencies and forms of representation of young people who participated in mediation processes related to youth gangs in Ecuador. Since the beginning of the 21st mediation alternatives –in which different hegemonic sectors have intervened– have been rehearsed proposing different options to substitute violence suffered and exercised (as a response) by youth gangs from Ecuador. The research is grounded on interviews conducted between 2018 and 2023 with various actors that have participated and documented the processes and results of mediation. By reviewing the historical processes of inequality and colonialism, placed in dialogue with the empirical material, we discuss the consequences and limits of mediation processes.
RESUMEN
Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la agencia y las formas de representación de jóvenes que participaron en procesos de mediación realizados con pandillas en Ecuador. Desde inicios del siglo XXI se han ensayado alternativas de mediación –en las que han intervenido diferentes sectores hegemónicos– proponiendo opciones diferentes para sustituir la violencia sufrida y ejercida (como respuesta) por las pandillas juveniles de Ecuador. La investigación se basa en entrevistas realizadas entre 2018 y 2023 a distintos actores que han participado y documentado los procesos y resultados de la mediación. Al revisar los procesos históricos de desigualdad y colonialismo, puestos en diálogo con el material empírico, discutimos las consecuencias y límites de los procesos de mediación.
Acknowledgements
The authors of this article would like to thank the members of the Transgang and Leban projects for their contributions, and especially Carles Feixa, PI of the aforementioned projects for the transfer of data. On the other hand, we would like to thank all the people contacted during the last phase of the investigation and those who provided us with their testimony.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The independence processes towards Spain began in 1809. Once colonial independence was achieved, the formation of the Nation-State stars. In this stage, around 1830, it separated from Colombia and the foundations of Ecuadorian society arose.
2 The taxonomies used to account for these processes differ widely from one context to another. Without going into the debates and problems they raise, in this article we have decided to use the terms ‘mediation’ and ‘legalization’, the emic categories employed by the actors in the interviews.
3 In 1987, the National Police in Guayaquil established a repressive body called the Special Anti-Gang Group (G.E.A.) in response to an increase in the feeling of insecurity. Later in 2003, the Metropolitan Directorate of Citizen Security and Corposeguridad was founded in Quito. The measures taken by these organisations, including militarisation, repression, curfews, and police harassment, have resulted in the criminalisation and stigmatisation of young people, who are now viewed as a threat to social order.
4 According to Loor, Aldas, and López (Citation2003), these gangs can be categorised into three types: gangs, crews, and nations. Gangs are armed groups led by adults, while crews are informal associations of youths with common interests. Nations are clandestine organisations with rigid structures. It's worth noting that Latin King, a prominent gang that originated as the Sacred Tribe Atahualpa of Ecuador, gained transnational prominence in the 1990s through contact with deported U.S. gang members. The gang found refuge in impoverished urban areas (Brotherton & Gude, Citation2018; Feixa & Andrade, Citation2020).
5 The translation is ours.
6 Ecuadorian stakeholder who has participated in the mediation processes, also he has studied latin gangs issues. Actually he is a consultant, linked to public policies, protection systems, rights of children and youth.
7 Note that the testimonies/gang members use the term 'organizacuón' to talk about the gang, in this text we have preferred to use 'gang' to avoid the confusion that the term organization can have (religious organization, among others).
8 Fictitious name chosen to anonymize the real data.
9 Manuel Zúñiga aka King Majestic, leader of the Latin King, murdered in 2022.
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Notes on contributors
Sonia Páez de la Torre
Sonia Páez de la Torre has an International PhD in Education from the University of Girona (Catalonia, Spain), a Master degree in Youth and Society (from the 6 public universities of Catalonia) and is Graduate in Language and Literature (National University of Tucumán, Argentina). She has trained as a Social Psychologist and as a Street Worker. She is currently a Margarita Salas Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Girona and she is carrying out her research stay at the Department of Communication at the Pompeu Fabra University. She is a member of the Youth, Society and Communication Research Group (JOVIScom) at the Pompeu Fabra University. Her scientific interests are based on interdisciplinarity and are linked to youth, immigration, education, social inequalities, empowerment and Latin America.
Miquel Úbeda
Miquel Úbeda is developing his doctorate in Social Anthropology at the University of Lleida. It focuses on economic practices and livelihoods in social peripheries and contexts of structural vulnerability. He is currently developing an ethnography that analyses the livelihood strategies, temporal dimensions and daily struggles of young workers and marginalised people. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki (Finland) and at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (France).