Abstract

This paper explores the basic vectors of the phenomenology of contemporary violence in El Salvador, focusing particularly on young people and the representations on which their institutions and society are built, taking into account both the discourses that young people use to define themselves and those they present to others. It argues that young people, as an analytical and normative category, face a challenging reality: without a defined place of their own, they are often subject to the discourses of others that locate them as subjects of evil. The objective of the essay is to more tightly bind the representations of young people´s reality taken from own speech to the world that they build for themselves, and break through the discourses and images that would reduce their youthful existence to gangs.

Keywords: Violence; young boys; representations; States; Globalization; national security