Abstract

The article focuses on the life conditions of young, «second generation» Latin-Americans in Spain. Against the criminalizing effects of security discourse and politics, it suggests conceiving the phenomenon of juvenile gangs as a form of agency and a practice of resistance through the accumulation of a transnational, social and cultural capital as "latinos". By addressing different instances in Barcelona and Madrid, the authors stress the increasing effects of exclusion suffered by the subjects in the current framework of the economic crisis. They also suggest conceiving the practices and ways of living in public spaces by the young street families ("familia calle") as a specific form of «home-making».