VIOLENCE AS THE SACRED: GANG STRUCTURES AND VIOLENCE AS A FORM OF SOCIAL (DIS)ORGANIZATION AND MEANING-MAKING

Abstract

The present research considers the influence of structural conditions of poverty, inequality, and historical discrimination on the formation of gang units and the use of violence as a normative means of survival, social organization and meaning-making within gang units. The theoretical contributions and research of Wilson et al and Hawkins et al serve as the foundation for a model describing a cyclical process of gang influence, in which the structural conditions of resource scarce and spatially compressed neighborhoods incentivize dynamics of conflictive ethnocentrism and violence, which are given meaning through social dynamics defined by in-group and out-group relations to violence as a form of social capital, which exacerbates inter-group conflict as affinity groups vie to assert their exclusive claim to violence and worsen structural conditions as a result. This study argues that the described process possesses religious characteristics, particularly in the consecration of violence among gangs as a value which sets the in-group and individuals associated with the in-group apart from others. The religious theories and approaches of Rene Girard, Emile Durkheim, Jonathan Haidt, and Mircea Eliade clarify the religious character of violence in gang structures and provide an understanding of the role of violence as an example of the totemic principle. The outcome of research determines that violence as the totemic principle creates a social order of gang affiliated “elect” and non-affiliated “laity”, which eventually breaks down as different groups compete and split in the process of expansion and assertion of unique claims to violence.