Studying the Gang through Critical Ethnography

This chapter outlines what is entailed in studying gangs through a critical ethnographic approach. A critical ethnography of the gang seeks to humanize the research subjects while fully exploring the environmental contexts of such groups as their members make their lives through their multiple identities, practices, social obligations, and relationships. This basic reconceptualization of these social actors emphasizes their agency, structured conditions, and history. Such a method of inquiry puts a premium on the reflexive approach of the researcher who is always struggling to develop a critical theory of the gang against the pathological paradigms of mainstream criminology through its methods of empiricism and positivism.