Doctoral Dissertation: "Transnationalizing Gangs: Expertise, Advocacy, and the Politics of Policymaking"

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In 2007, the U.S. government named gangs as a transnational problem and a threat to the U.S., in "The U.S. Strategy to Combat Criminal Gangs from Mexico and Central America." Decades of research in the social sciences evidence "gangs" as locally-specific, neighborhood-based phenomena (Thrasher 1927, Whyte 1943, Lewis 1961, Vigil 1988). US government employees, advocates with non-governmental organizations, and academic gang experts contributed to the Strategy through a collaborative policymaking process, which drew upon knowledge from diverse institutions. By naming gangs a transnational problem in U.S. foreign policy, this set of actors is redefining the gang problem and in turn is shaping proposed solutions in the U.S., Mexico, Central America and beyond. For twelve months, the researcher will examine the micropolitics of the emergence of the Strategy in order to analyze the logic which produces gangs as a transnational threat at the exclusion of other ways of framing the problem and its solution. She will work with people in three categories (government officials, advocates, and gang experts) and will use three methods (semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis.)Anthropologists traditionally work in neighborhoods to examine how and why gang violence emerges and is perpetuated (Vigil 2003). What we do not understand about gangs is the social process through which they have been named and framed as a problem in policy. Policy framings are particularly important because they shape solutions that have powerful material consequences for gang members and communities affected by gang violence. This research will contribute to understanding the shift in framing gangs as a local problem with local solutions to framing gangs as a transnational problem in need of transnational solutions. The US government recently negotiated $500 million in security and aid packages with Mexico and Central America in which transnational gangs were named as a key target. The transnationalization of gangs in policy impacts youth at risk of joining gangs, gang members themselves, affected communities, as well as the larger community of citizens in the U.S., Central America, and Mexico.