ABSTRACT
A key purpose of this book is to examine the hybridity and plurality of youth worlds. This chapter describes youth cultures in two places on different continents – Catalonia in Spain, and Mexico. It examines how the transnational youth lifestyle known as punk, that arose in a concrete place and time – 1970s Britain – has been diffused and adapted in two other geographical and historical contexts – Spain in the 1980s and Mexico in the 1990s. Firstly, the presence of youth cultures in both national scenes is explained, then fi eldwork experiences in Lleida and Mexico City are analysed. Chavos banda (youth gangs) in Mexico articulate a youth micro-culture of class, ethnic claims, territoriality and gender identity. Comparison with the more moderate tribus urbanas (urban tribes) in Catalonia offers us the possibility of refl ecting on the globalization of youth styles, the emergence of new kinds of symbolic tensions, the context of urban growth/decay, and the cultural consequences of youth unemployment.
