Publication

This paper looks at the evolution of Nicaraguan youth gangs during the past decade. The author argues that this evolution is essentially a story of two halves. The first involves a desperate attempt to mitigate the fragmentation of Nicaraguan social life through the creation of a restricted and ultimately unviable form of local collective social order. The second is about the grasping of a new opportunity for an improved way of life which has emerged in the form of the drugs trade.