Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (2)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Garot, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

"Where You From!"

Gang Identity as Performance

Robert Garot

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, rgarot{at}yahoo.com

This article investigates how young people in an inner-city ecology invoke the relevance of gangs by demanding, "Where you from!" Such a challenge creates a lively venue for performing identity and emotional manipulation for both the instigator who offers the challenge and the respondent. Rather than conceptualizing young people as gang members and gangs as a static group, this analysis shows how the doing of gangs is strategic and context sensitive. Such an approach provides an alternative to conceptualizing identity, and especially gang identity, not as a fixed personal characteristic but as a sensual response to a moment’s vicissitudes.

Key Words: gangs • identity • performance • inner-city • boundaries

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 36, No. 1, 50-84 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0891241606287364
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Urban EducationHome page
J. Gardner
Beyond "Making It" or Not: Future Talk by Incarcerated Young Men
Urban Education, January 1, 2010; 45(1): 75 - 102.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 EthnographyHome page
W. Duck
'Senseless' violence: Making sense of murder
Ethnography, December 1, 2009; 10(4): 417 - 434.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Theoretical CriminologyHome page
L. Presser
The narratives of offenders
Theoretical Criminology, May 1, 2009; 13(2): 177 - 200.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 EthnographyHome page
R. Garot
Reconsidering retaliation: Structural inhibitions, emotive dissonance, and the acceptance of ambivalence among inner-city young men
Ethnography, March 1, 2009; 10(1): 63 - 90.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social ScienceHome page
G. A. Fine and C. D. Fields
Culture and Microsociology: The Anthill and the Veldt
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 1, 2008; 619(1): 130 - 148.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Crime Media CultureHome page
R. Garot
Book Review: Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs Norma Mendoza-Denton Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. 360 pp. $34.95. ISBN 063123490X
Crime Media Culture, August 1, 2008; 4(2): 285 - 289.
[PDF]

Home page
 Theoretical CriminologyHome page
D. C. Brotherton
Beyond social reproduction: Bringing resistance back in gang theory
Theoretical Criminology, February 1, 2008; 12(1): 55 - 77.
[Abstract] [PDF]