El Territorios en disputa: violencia juvenil y exclusión urbana en Madrid y Londres. Análisis comparado
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/rec.12.34907Keywords:
violencia juvenil, exclusión urbana, gobernanza informal, estigmatización territorial, Madrid, LondresAbstract
This article offers a comparative analysis of urban exclusion, youth violence, and informal governance in peripheral neighborhoods of Madrid and London. Drawing on a qualitative design based on semi-structured interviews, participant observation, participatory mapping, and documentary analysis, it examines the everyday experiences of racialized youth in contexts of socioeconomic marginalization and territorial stigmatization. The findings reveal the existence of “forbidden zones” linked to subjective geographies of fear, the ambivalent role of youth gangs as both spaces of protection and risk, and a profound mistrust toward public institutions, particularly the police and social services. The study concludes that urban space is not a passive backdrop but an active structuring agent of exclusion and violence, with dynamics that manifest differently in both cities. These results challenge dominant punitive approaches and emphasize the need for territorial care policies that acknowledge youth agency and restore rights in precarious urban contexts.
References
Anselin, L. (1988). Spatial econometrics: Methods and models. Springer.
Aramayona, B., & Nofre, J. (2021). Neighbairhood and gentrification: Racialised youth and urban change in Madrid. In Exploring Ibero-American Youth Cultures. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83541-5_3
Bartzokas-Tsiompras, A., & Konstantinidou, E. (2023). Visual analytics of graffiti spatial patterns across 30 European city centres. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 50(2), 564–568. https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083221149426
Becker, G. S. (1968). Crime and punishment: An economic approach. Journal of Political Economy, 76(2), 169–217. https://doi.org/10.1086/259394
Bečević, Z., & Dahlstedt, M. (2021). On the margins of citizenship: Youth participation and youth exclusion in times of neoliberal urbanism. Journal of Youth Studies, 25(3), 362–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2021.1886261
Bär, M. (2024). Safe spaces for marginalised young people: Ambivalent pastoral engagement of Pentecostal churches in the slums of Guatemala. Verbum et Ecclesia. https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v45i2.3199
Cabral, B. (2024). Coming from México ‘for a better life here’: Street gangs, American violence, and the spatialized contours and historical continuity of racial capitalism. Critical Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231221252
Campana, P., & Varese, F. (2025). Criminal governance in a large European city: The case of gangs in London. European Journal of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1177/14773708251315581
Chatzichristos, E. (2023). In what way a ‘Guarantee for youth’? NEETs entrapped by labour market policies in the European Union. Journal of Youth Studies, 27, 1207–1226. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2023.2211943
Contreras, R. (2024). The marvelous ones: Drugs, gang violence, and resistance in East Los Angeles. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.13027
Cooper, C., Cunningham, N., Bracken, L. J., & Collier, M. (2024). Distribution of Nature-based Solutions in cities across Europe. Land Use Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107160
Davis, D. E. (2020). Urban violence and the spatial question. In K. Koonings & D. Kruijt (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Political Economy (Ch. 41). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190926557.013.41
Deák, J. (2024). A critical discussion of the relationship between processes of spatial transformation and youth gang activity in Denver. Groundings Undergraduate. https://doi.org/10.36399/groundingsug.15.127
Drake, D. H., Walters, R., Wood, M., & Koumouris, G. (2024). Criminología y estudios de propaganda: Trazando nuevos horizontes en el pensamiento criminológico. The British Journal of Criminology, 64(3), 558–575. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azad045
Dykes, G., Brey, F., Carelse, S., Davids, R., Gawulayo, S., Human-Hendricks, A., Lukelelo, N., Mandlana, A., & Safodien, R. (2024). The perils of service provision in unsafe areas: Providing continuing services to youth during gang violence in the Cape Flats, South Africa. Southern African Journal of Social Work and Social Development. https://doi.org/10.25159/2708-9355/15136
Ehrlich, I. (1973). Participation in illegitimate activities: A theoretical and empirical investigation. Journal of Political Economy, 81(3), 521–565. https://doi.org/10.1086/260058
Elhorst, J. P. (2014). Spatial econometrics: From cross-sectional data to spatial panels. Springer.
Fenger, M. (2023). Public policy to reduce inequalities across Europe: Hope versus reality. International Journal of Public Administration, 46, 740–740. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2023.2168695
Foley, E. E., Ross, L., & Arista, C. (2023). Basketball courts, street corners and empty lots: The spatial dimensions of youth fear and vulnerability to violence. Children, Youth and Environments, 23(1), 43–63. https://doi.org/10.7721/CHILYOUTENVI.23.1.0043
Free, J. L., Wilson, J. M., Carse, E., & Frushell, E. (2023). Governed by the streets: Streetworkers’ perspectives on youth engagement in crime and violence. Journal of Crime and Justice, 46(4), 508–525. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2023.2195679
Furková, A. (2024). Education inequality within the European Union: A spatial statistics approach. The Asian Conference on Education 2023 Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5892.2024.49
Gaga, M. (2024). Cultures of desperation: Exploring gangsterism and cultism in the modern digital age. Journal of Terrorism and Defence Studies. https://doi.org/10.69778/3007-7176/2024/1.1/a4
Ganapathy, N. (2025). Masculinity in the margins: Race, gang violence, and the code of the street. Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14050282
García-Ponce, O., & Laterzo, R. (2023). Who is to blame? Youth crime and attribution of responsibility in urban Mexico. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4057578
Harel, Y. (2011). A cross-national study of youth violence in Europe. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 11(3-4), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.1515/IJAMH.1999.11.3-4.121
Joseph, J. J. (2024). Youth gang involvement and long-term offending: The role of psychopathic traits. Youth, 4(3), Article 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4030065
Jump, D., & Gray, P. (2024). Partners in crime: Integrating forensic psychotherapy into criminological discourse. The International Journal of Forensic Psychotherapy. https://doi.org/10.33212/ijfp.v6n1.2024.86
Kolb, A. F., Kolb, W. J., & Favors, M. (2025). Where there’s smoke, there’s fire: Gang prevention from a top-down perspective. Social Sciences, 14(3), Article 128. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14030128
Liang, S., & Zhang, T. (2025). Residential marginalization of renters: Social adaptation of urban youth in suburbanized living in first-tier cities. Art and Society. https://doi.org/10.56397/as.2025.01.07
Livingstone, S. (2025). Racial tropes of ‘street gangs’ and the aggressive policing of Black youth and other youth of colour. The British Journal of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azaf028
McCrea, R., & Richards, K. (2024). “We are not all gangbangers”: Youth in high-poverty urban U.S. communities of color. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 35(3), 285–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2023.2295516
Mendez, L., & Kerig, P. (2023). Gang membership among adolescents from distinct racial and ethnic backgrounds: The roles of neighborhood conditions and victimization. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605221145717
Messina, B. C. (2024). Crime and violence on the margins of society: How justice-based power vacuums create deprived neighbourhoods. Sociology Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13194
Mnyavanu, M. (2025). From joblessness to disruption: How unemployment fuels social unrest among youth in Makumbusho Ward, Dar es Salaam. Journal of Governance and Security Studies. https://doi.org/10.59645/jgss.v1i1.599
Molnar, C. (2023). Interpretable machine learning (2nd ed.). Springer.
Newburn, D. A., Polsky, C., Johnston, R. J., Wang, H., & Ndebele, T. (2023). Modeling multi-scale influences on household lawncare decisions: Formal and informal neighborhood conforming effects on fertilizer use. Landscape and Urban Planning, 240, 104869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2023.104869
Paré, P.-P., & Felson, R. (2014). Crimen, pobreza y política: Desigualdad de ingresos, pobreza y delincuencia entre países. The British Journal of Sociology, 65(3), 434–458. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12083
Pyrooz, D., & Buckley, P. R. (2023). Improving the livelihoods of justice-involved youth: Functional family therapy-gangs. Contemporary Clinical Trials. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4379348
Seal, D., Nguyen, A., & Beyer, K. (2014). Youth exposure to violence in an urban setting. Urban Studies Research, 2014, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/368047
TRANSGANG Project. (2023). Youth street groups and mediation in Southern Europe: Ethnographic findings. https://doi.org/10.31009/transgang.2023.fr01
Tulumello, S. (2023). The continuum of urban violence, and beyond. Dialogues in Urban Research, 1(2), 120–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/27541258231156837
Wacquant, L. (2008). Urban outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality. Polity Press.
Winden, F., & Ash, E. (2010). On the behavioral economics of crime. Review of Law & Economics, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/1555-5879.1591
Woods, M. (2024). Rural-urban inequalities and spatial justice in Europe. Europa XXI. https://doi.org/10.7163/eu21.2023.44.8
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 JOSE LUIS BUSTELO GRACIA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución 4.0.
