Youth Gangs and Streets in Surabaya, East Java: Growth, Movement and Places in the Context of Urban Transformations

Summary

This article is published in the journal Antropologia and is free to read online.

The article investigates the nature of youth street gangs in the poor inner city neighborhood of Kampung Malang, located in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. Specifically, it explores the relationship of youth street gangs with urban places and their transition to organized crime in the context of migration to South Bali. It focuses on notions of social cohesion, discipline and invulnerability while placing an emphasis on work and the quest for work against a background of uncertainty and precariousness. It introduces movement as a salient feature of life in the city and in the life of young gang members and it looks at how circuits of human mobility are configured for a particular group of people, to particular ends in a particular place.