Youth Gangs and Street Children

The rapidly expanding population of youth gangs and street children is one of the most disturbing issues in many cities around the world. These children are perceived to be in a constant state of destitution, violence, and vagrancy, and therefore must be a serious threat to society, needing heavy-handed intervention and "tough love" from concerned adults to impose societal norms on them and turn them into responsible citizens. However, such norms are far from the lived reality of these children. The situation is further complicated by genderbased violence and masculinist ideologies found in the wider Ethiopian culture, which influence the proliferation of youth gangs. By focusing on gender as the defining element of these children's lives—as they describe it in their own words—this book offers a clear analysis of how the unequal and antagonistic gender relations that are tolerated and normalized by everyday school and family structures shapes their lives at home and on the street.

"Richly illustrated by quotes and life histories, the manuscript is an excellent ethnography of the ways in which young people develop resilience through continual reworking of webs of care, nurturance and interaction amongst themselves and with their families… The text is well written, comprehensive and based on a rich source of empirical material that is well analyzed and interpreted." - Tatek Abebe, Norwegian Centre for Child Research, Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology, Trondheim

Paula Heinonen is of Ethiopian/Italian parentage and grew up in Addis Ababa. She was Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Head of Research, Centre for Training and Research on Women in Development at the University of Addis Ababa, from 1996 to 2001, and now is Tutor and Visiting Fellows Program Coordinator at the International Gender Studies Centre, University of Oxford.