Abstract

This essay reviews David Pyrooz and James Densley's "On Public Protest, Violence, and Street Gangs" and raises new questions about the ways in which Antifa is similar to and different from social movements; the processes by which "factions within Antifa" become gangs; and the dynamic nature of relationships and interactions between and among violent and non-violent segments. It concludes with a note about the everchanging nature of social life and importance of flexibility in the design and execution of research in capturing this reality.

Keywords Antifa * Gangs * Group processes

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David Pyrooz and James Densley's recounting of reactions to their bold foray into the troubled waters of applied social science is instructive on several counts, in effect highlighting both the hazards and importance of the issues addressed to a variety of publics (political and social in the broadest sense, including the academic). Because space limitations preclude detailed examination of these issues, we focus primarily on their significance for the academy and for the publics to which we are ultimately accountable.

Conceptual issues arise quickly in Pyrooz and Densley's article, beginning with identification of "Antifa" as a group at the forefront of a "budding social movement." The authors then note that "factions within antifa were indeed durable across time, street-oriented, and youthful groups, and, importantly, intentional in their illegal behavior," which is "central to their collective identity"--the Eurogang definition of gangs. Thus, despite the overall frame of their essay, their conclusion is that only some segments within Antifa are youth street gangs.

Doing away quickly with the first of two "sticking points" in defining gangs, i.e., that gangs have an organized structure, Pyrooz and Densley turn to the question of whether or not to include criminal activity in the definition. For several reasons, they affirm the Eurogang consensus to include it. First, they note, criminal and violent behaviors are not the only gang outcomes of interest, making it possible to define gangs in these terms while avoiding the tautology problem.

Second, Pyrooz and Densley argue that "the unit of analysis in this area of study is 'gang members' rather than 'gangs,' which has allowed researchers to skirt around problems of definition and tautology by instead studying individuals who are at liberty to self-nominate (or not) as gang members." Although Pyrooz and Densley correctly observe that this focus on individuals has contributed to much being learned about the variability of behavior within gangs, we believe it is in important respects a fundamental limitation of gang research insofar as it fails to capture the dynamics of behavior as a product of intra-and inter-gang relationships, and of relationships with community institutions and forces occurring beyond local communities. As noted by Sierra-Arevalo and Papachristos (2015: 157-158, emphasis in original), "It is exactly the enhanced groupness of gangs that differentiates them from common, passing delinquent groups, and which makes gangs analytically interesting....