Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper delineates young people’s (aged 15-21) violent involvement and engagement in the risky urban neigborhoods of Islamabad and Rawalpindi and how these young people view their deviancy. This study gauge “Street Code” theory of Anderson. The street codes, including but not limited to, respect, honor, recognition, and identity are major apostolates of Anderson. This paper is extracted from a detailed investigation of the risky urban neigborhoods of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Four focus group discussions and ten expert interviews were conducted in addition to in-depth interviews (N=30) with the adolescents. MAX QDA was used as tool for data analysis. The deductive coding did not only test the street code theory of Anderson, but it also gave profound insights into the sociological phenomenon of the youth engagement in deviant behavior. The results gave a comprehensive posture of the risky urban neighborhoods of the twin cities. Although Anderson’s street code theory has relevancy with the Pakistani street code, the youth depicted some uniqueness. Different from Anderson’s assumptions, the Pakistani street code exhibited additional attributes like peacocking and trust which are values additional to the existing body of knowledge. Nevertheless, the Pakistani street code is complex, deeply entrenched, and penetrating to social structure - and has intersections with the global street code.