Roy Gigengack

La banda y sus choros: Un grupo de niños de la calle hilando historias de edad, género y liderazgo

SUMMARY This article recounts the story of the Bucareli boys, a group of street children in Mexico City who were also known as the banda of metro Juarez. Documenting the “Buca” boys over a period of three years allowed me to formulate three insights about the internal power differentiation in terms of leadership, gender, and age. These insights are valid as well, I think, for the other 15 bandas where I did fieldwork. First, it is important to place the dynamics of leadership and gender relations in an age perspective. Second, as structuring principles of street life, leadership, gender and age have an inherently evanescent character, due to an interplay of constraints that are both internal and external to the banda. My third suggestion concurs with Liebow in that homelessness creates a world of paradoxes and contradictions. Power differentiation among relatively powerless people is a contradiction in terms; and the dynamics of leadership, gender and age disclose paradoxical social ties within the banda. These can be particularly harrowing in the relations between street kids and the young adults posing as surrogate fathers and mothers. This ethnographic analysis of “crazy-making homelessness” is relevant for mental health. The kids’ story-telling about leadership and gender relations veiled their fragility, since in these tales they attributed themselves a power which they did not have in reality. More than mere symptoms of psychopathology or a manipulative personality disorder, these stories testify to the creativity and resilience of these young people. The illusory power of the choros, the bullshit tales about street children, enables them to live in apparent harmony under the conditions in which they live.

Inhalant drug use and street youth: Ethnographic insights from Mexico City

The inhalation of volatile substances with intentions of intoxication affects the lives of marginalized youths around the globe, but remains poorly understood. Based upon long-term ethnographic enquiry, this chapter describes the inhalant use of Mexico Citys young street people from their perspective, and understands it as learned behavior and lived experience. The “normalcy” of inhalant use in Mexico City is striking; streetwise inhabitants have knowledge about inhalants and inhalant users, and act accordingly. Users distinguish and classify a range of inhalants and sniffing techniques. Complicated patterns of inhalant use indicate the becoming of what are known as “inhalant fiends”: formation within users of gusto, the acquired appetite for inhalants, and of vicio, the devotion to inhalants. An elaborate street culture of sniffing thus emerges: a complex configuration of shared perspectives and embodied practices, shaped by and shaping social exclusion. These findings are relevant to appreciate and address the acquired appetite and devotion of the so-called inhalant fiends.The inhalation of volatile substances with intentions of intoxication affects the lives of marginalized youths around the globe, but remains poorly understood. Based upon long-term ethnographic enquiry, this chapter describes the inhalant use of Mexico Citys young street people from their perspective, and understands it as learned behavior and lived experience. The “normalcy” of inhalant use in Mexico City is striking; streetwise inhabitants have knowledge about inhalants and inhalant users, and act accordingly. Users distinguish and classify a range of inhalants and sniffing techniques. Complicated patterns of inhalant use indicate the becoming of what are known as “inhalant fiends”: formation within users of gusto , the acquired appetite for inhalants, and of vicio , the devotion to inhalants. An elaborate street culture of sniffing thus emerges: a complex configuration of shared perspectives and embodied practices, shaped by and shaping social exclusion. These findings are relevant to appreciate and address the acquired appetite and devotion of the so-called inhalant fiends.

Chapter 99 – Inhalant Drug Use and Street Youth: Ethnographic Insights from Mexico City∗

The inhalation of volatile substances with intentions of intoxication affects the lives of marginalized youths around the globe, but remains poorly understood. Based upon long-term ethnographic enquiry, this chapter describes the inhalant use of Mexico Citys young street people from their perspective, and understands it as learned behavior and lived experience. The “normalcy” of inhalant use in Mexico City is striking; streetwise inhabitants have knowledge about inhalants and inhalant users, and act accordingly. Users distinguish and classify a range of inhalants and sniffing techniques. Complicated patterns of inhalant use indicate the becoming of what are known as “inhalant fiends”: formation within users of gusto, the acquired appetite for inhalants, and of vicio, the devotion to inhalants. An elaborate street culture of sniffing thus emerges: a complex configuration of shared perspectives and embodied practices, shaped by and shaping social exclusion. These findings are relevant to appreciate and address the acquired appetite and devotion of the so-called inhalant fiends.The inhalation of volatile substances with intentions of intoxication affects the lives of marginalized youths around the globe, but remains poorly understood. Based upon long-term ethnographic enquiry, this chapter describes the inhalant use of Mexico Citys young street people from their perspective, and understands it as learned behavior and lived experience. The “normalcy” of inhalant use in Mexico City is striking; streetwise inhabitants have knowledge about inhalants and inhalant users, and act accordingly. Users distinguish and classify a range of inhalants and sniffing techniques. Complicated patterns of inhalant use indicate the becoming of what are known as “inhalant fiends”: formation within users of gusto , the acquired appetite for inhalants, and of vicio , the devotion to inhalants. An elaborate street culture of sniffing thus emerges: a complex configuration of shared perspectives and embodied practices, shaped by and shaping social exclusion. These findings are relevant to appreciate and address the acquired appetite and devotion of the so-called inhalant fiends.