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crime and violence. Through the central metaphor of die agterbuurde (the
back streets), which is simultaneously a physical and an identitary space, the
practices of young men are unpacked in terms of the informal economy, gang rituals,
narrative constructions of bravery and masculine assertion and in relation to
dominant (white) society. Theoretically, the argument draws on the analysis of the
war machine by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The central argument is
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intervention, it provides the platform from which the young men, from die
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