La Mara de Cristo: Homies and Hermanos in the Barrio

1
La Mara de Cristo Homies and Hermanos in the
Barrio
Photo Piet den Blanken

• Robert Brenneman, Saint Michaels College

2
Punchline

• The challenge, from the perspective of the worn
  out gang member, is how to construct a
  believable, durable identity as an ex-gang member

• Evangelical-Pentecostal congregations, with their
  deeply emotional, public, and frequent worship
  services their dense social ties and their
  moral capital, provide the most attractive and
  available option for meeting this challenge.

3
Contemporary Violence in Central America
(Observador Centroamericano de la violencia,
OCAVI)
4
The Gangs of Central America From pandilla to
mara

1. Youth street gangs date to at least 1970s
2. Latino gang members from L.A. arrived in San
   Salvador in 1992
3. Grew quickly, co-opted, networked local gangs
4. Institutional vacuum of post-war economies

5
Los mareros The perfect scapegoat

• Mara Dieciocho (M-18)
• Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)
• Vatos Locos
• White Fence

6
Membership Estimates
Salvadoran Police Estimates quoted in USAID
2006 Aguilar 2008 PNUD 2009
7
Hasta la morgue!

• Tightening of membership rules
• Neftalí The only way out of here is in your
  pine-box suit.
• Attempt to exercise social control
• Response to social cleansing

8
Evangelicalism in Central America

1. Experiential focus emphasis on healing
2. Strict piety, sectarian community
3. Address each other as hermanos
4. Expected to avoid 5 Ps

9
Research Project Explain Gang Conversions from a
Sociological Perspective
10
Research Project Explain Gang Conversions from a
Sociological Perspective
11
Research Questions

1. Why do gang members convert?
2. How does religious conversion work
   sociologically?
3. What can gang conversions teach us about religion
   in Central American?

12
Methods

• Interviews with practitioners in youth violence
  and reintegration (N28)
• Interviews with ex-gang members (N63) Sex 59
  men, 4 women
• Nationality
• 33 Hondurans
• 22 Guatemalans
• 8 Salvadorans

13
Three common exit pathways

1. Become a reservist (pandillero calmado)
2. Emigrate
3. Convert and/or join an evangelical church

14
Religion of Interviewees
15
Findings Why convert?

1. Evangelical reputation as refuge from the
   street.
2. Congregations cultivate this reputation.
3. Gangs allow for evangelical exemption

16
The evangelical exemption

• Vera (non-convert) Really, the only way to get
  out is to get involved in the church one hundred
  percent. But the gang keeps watch over you day
  and night to see if youre actually completing
  it.

17
The evangelical exemption

• Do you know of anyone who was ever caught
  breaking the rules after joining the church?
• Gustavo (convert) (Pause.) Yes. Owl (El Buhu).
  He went to church and kept the rules, dressed
  right and everything except he liked to smoke
  marijuana. He used to go with his girlfriend to
  the Assembly of God church. One night the gang
  pulled him out of church and shot him outside.
• You mean they pulled him out right in the middle
  of the service?
• Yes. They saw him. He smoked a joint right
  outside before going into the church. Look, the
  gang takes religion very seriously and they dont
  it like when people mix the church and the gang.

18
Findings Why convert?

• Evangelicals offer tools for identity
  reconstruction
• Pastors and members provide accountability
  (e.g. social policing).
• Pastors provide work references.
• Congregations provide job leads and (sometimes)
  financial stop-gap.
• Evangelicals provide alternative masculinity
  and religious career options.

19
Why not convert?

1. High cost of conversion in the barrio.
2. Eliminates access to macho pastimes
3. Threat of elimination if conversion does not
   stick
4. Loss of access to resources from underground
   economy (no freelancing)

20
Is conversion merely a matter of rational
choice?

• Sometimesbut not always.
• Some ex-gang members described their conversion
  in strategic terms.
• Others described themselves as surprised,
  virtually helpless converts.
• In these cases, emotion was reported as a key
  element of the conversion experience.

21
Ex-member of M-18
22
Findings How does conversion work?

1. Congregations provide rituals for dealing with
   shame
2. Repressed shame (Gilligan 1996) was a key theme
   in the accounts of joining the gang.
3. Public conversion provides safe space for
   expressing remorse, discharging shame (Scheff
   1990).
4. Emotional conversions provide a clue to self
   and others of authenticity of new identity.

23
Findings How does conversion work?

• Evangelical congregations are greedy
  institutions
• Practice time-hoarding via multiple evening
  services and prayer groups.
• Maintain clear in-group/out-group boundaries
  familiar to the gang member.

24
Conclusion What Gang Conversions Teach Us about
Gangs

1. Transnational gangs seek to raise barriers to
   leaving by requiring deserters to provide
   evidence of lifestyle change
2. Many gang leaders appear to respect high
   religiosity of evangelicals

25
Conclusion What Gang Conversions Teach Us about
Religion

1. Evangelicals rarely talk about afterlife.
2. Central American evangelicals do confront social
   problems but with spiritual-social resources.
3. Conversion events provide emotional lever for
   rupturing hyper-machismo through spoiling of
   macho identity.

26
Evangelical Gang Ministry Social Movement?

• Not aimed at social change
• Does not seek collective action
• Social structural critique not widespread

27
Practical insights How to reduce gang violence

1. Violence among young males arises out of the
   concrete experience of humiliation.
2. Gang youth seek belonging and respect.
3. Violence reduction must provide alternative
   pathways to respect for young males (alternative
   masculinities).

28
(No Transcript)
29
Mil gracias! Photo credits The photograph on
slide 1, Jeugdbendes by Piet den Blanken. Used
with Permission. All others belong to author.