ABSTRACT
Buscando Respeto is a documentary about the self-representations generated by those who are represented as dangerous subjects and enemies of the urban order. It is set in Barcelona, where the subjects who appear and take the floor are defined by the media industry through the category of youth gangs. In Spain, as well as elsewhere, this term is often qualified and ethnified – the gang members are in fact Latinos – thus contributing to fueling moral panics around migratory phenomena. In this chapter, I will outline the method and the research trajectory leading to Buscando Respeto, a visual work which combines the language of fiction with that of documentary. I also intend to reflect critically on my research practices in the field of visual sociology around subaltern subjects, whose access to word and image is bound by a multiplicity of filters and power relations. The chapter, based on filmic ethnographic research in Barcelona, will retrace three critical phases of this path: 1) the access to the field of gangs, 2) the process of shared writing with youth coming from the gang experience and 3) the objectification in a piece of visual work in order to critically discuss the challenges and potential of filmic ethnography with subaltern subjects.
