In Winnipeg and other Prairie cities, gang membership is dominated by Indigenous youth living in marginalised neighbourhoods that are seen as gang controlled. He explained:Ī housing project in a peripheral part of Cape Town where gangs are common. Gavin, a long-time member of the Mongrels gang, grew up with an abusive father in an impoverished informal settlement on the outskirts of Cape Town.

The paper presented in this article adds to a small but growing body of gang literature that draws comparisons across international contexts. They create the conditions in which many young Coloured and Indigenous men and women turn to gangs. The deep-rooted contours of discrimination, disenfranchisement, and disempowerment – past and present – shape social life in Cape Town and on the Canadian Prairies. They are often an indication of larger problems in the societies in which they exist. Whether in South Africa, Canada, or elsewhere, gangs are an embedded, systemic feature of unequal and exclusionary urban landscapes.

Our findings are represented through the accounts of two former gang members, Gavin and Roddy, in South Africa and Canada. Our paper compared the life histories of 24 gang members from Cape Town to those of 53 members in Prairie cities. Researchers often overlook the similarities between street gang involvement and its connection to marginalisation and colonisation in South Africa and Canada.

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