In the ‘h200d’: Crips and the intersection between space and identity in the Netherlands

Since the early 1990s, there have been reports in the Netherlands of groups of youngsters calling themselves Crips and Bloods. In this article, I will focus on the case of the Dutch Rollin 200 Crips from the city of The Hague, drawing on three years of fieldwork (2011–2013) in a small neighbourhood that this Dutch ‘gang’ claims as their ‘h200d’. The history of the Rollin 200 Crips shows their deeply rooted connection to the locality, whilst the influences from global street and gang cultures simultaneously resonates in both the name of the gang and their street spatial practices. By looking at the ways these Dutch Crips engage in acts of territoriality, I want to build on Ilan’s (2013: 5–7; 2015: 75) and Fraser’s (2013, 2015) observations that there is a need to revisit some of the assumptions that underpin the understanding of street spatial practices and specifically the way young people understand and construct space and identity. This case study highlights the interconnection between space and identity, both in terms of how the gang identity of these Dutch Crips influences their usage of space, but also how space is used in the construction of personal identities.

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