Among TRANSGANG’s distinctive characteristics we can highlight the following novelties:

• The application of a novel theoretical framework for research with street youth groups based on an innovative combination of post-subcultural studies, post-colonial perspectives and critical criminology, together with the application of intersectional analysis. Moreover, another novel aspect is the inclusion of the “age” category at the centre of the analysis in order to discover the forms of exclusion that young members suffer as a result of their age social status.

• Due to the need for standardization in data collection and analytical perspectives to achieve the project objectives, a shared analysis model has been produced constructed with the participation of local researchers, UPF research team members and youth street group members. This objective has been achieved through the analysis categories established in the Methodology Handbook, which makes it possible, as a novelty, to maintain the transnational, the richness, the singularities and the meanings of the particular contexts in the last analysis level. An ambitious meta-ethnographic strategy has been chosen, which, by including the analysis of primary data, requires greater coordination and systematization of the coding process.

• The focus of the project on conflict resolution acquires new aspects when the members of youth groups are presented as potential mediation agents. This approach has been tested based on prospective interviews and a mediation workshop held in the city of Madrid in 2018, in which young members of street youth groups from various neighbourhoods of the city participated. The evaluation of the course made it possible to understand the significant importance of the figure of the natural non-professional mediator who, on many occasions, is rooted in the cultural systems of conflict resolution in each region.

• The central position of the young members and ex-members of the street groups during all the research phases of the project and in the communication plans becomes a central strategy and they are included throughout the process. This presence makes it possible to positivize the gaze towards the groups, focusing the project on the analysis of successful cases and social inclusion, and addressing the positive aspects of belonging to these groups. At the same time, it allows us to de-stigmatize their representation in the social imaginary, without ruling out conflictive situations or the barriers that oppose these inclusive processes.