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RIGHTS FROM THE STREET CORNER IN MEKELLE. AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF AN UNRULY YOUTH GROUP IN THE MUTABLE URBAN SCENARIO. [Abstract ID: 0702-01]
The paper aims to offer an analysis, starting from an empirical case study of the urban transitional social context of Mekelle city.The study adopts an ethnographic approach, based on qualitative inquiry and participant observation. The research focuses on the debates on a slice of urban life, where a group of young people from Da Gabriel block as protagonists. These youths are a kind of “corner boys society”, spending all their time at their block street corners, apparently without any purpose or motivation. Their block was originally a rural area, then it became a sub-urban area and now it is turning into a new inner city. Everything is changing around them, who define themselves as brothers and as a gang-a sub-group named “third world”. They are often accused legitimately or not of not having a working attitude and of being violent small criminals or cheaters. They have a way of perceiving the city and the social justice, based primarily on the solidarity among themselves, like brothers of the block (deki sefer). This is a form of resistance to the rapid socio-political transformation processes. The analysis will start from an audiovisual document – provided by Tigray Television - in which a recent mediation process is reported between Da Gabriel guys and young people from another block, "enemies" during a period of street fights. The traditional mediation process is called Erki, which here becomes an interesting scene in which various social parts - street guys groups, administrators, elders, religious leaders, neighbours try to express the ideology of their subgroup and their claims of "justice" in the city.