“You are my blood, my brother from the heart”

Abstract

The aim of this article –rooted in ethnographic research– is to show, from the point of view of homeless children in Mexico, how they consider the gangs they belong to as their home and family, and how the relationships created inside these gangs can be considered as kinship ties. They base these relatedness (Carsten, 1997) processes on friendship, solidarity and care relationships among them. This interpretation of gangs as home/families leads me to propose that those homeless children and their daily practices –from their marginal position– contradict the conventional and naturalized uses of childhood, home and family concepts. Those children subvert traditional notions by considering themselves as agents able to cover their own necessities, and when they create friendship nets, choose where to live, who to live with and how to do it. They show us another way to organize a home and a family, with affective and kinship relationships also visible here.