ABSTRACT
In recent years, northern Thai youth gangs have attracted significant media attention due to their reputation for violence and presumed links with methamphetamine (ya ba) consumption and trade. However, as I shall demonstrate, some gangs actively eschew ya ba use. In fact, one gang (the NDR) has established a rule against drugs as a means for defining its grow up identity. Like ya ba use, gang delinquency is often depicted in mainstream representations as somehow pathological in formation rather than shaped by any positive impetus. Yet over the course of my fieldwork I discovered that “deviant” gangs in Chiang Mai exhibited certain styles and engaged in specific practices for reasons no different from non-violent urban subcultures. For gang youth, violence offers one means for “fitting in and sticking out” in an anonymous urban city. I suggest that this wish to belong and be visible provides the primary basis for subcultural formation. Though, while members of inter subcultural groups draw primarily on global cultural resources as a means of standing out and enhancing one’s subcultural capital, violent gang youth rely more heavily on local culture to achieve status and a sense of self-worth, particularly in relation to enduring notions of masculinity.
