Between cyberspace and the street: Conducting ethnography with youth street groups in times of physical distancing

We analyse the different scenarios that our research TRANSGANG had to encounter in the moment the health alert due to the pandemic Coronavirus was decreed. We base our analysis on a questionnaire carried out to 16 TRANSGANG researchers in the Maghreb, southern Europe and the Americas. First, we examine the impact of physical distancing measures on social relationships, especially on youth street groups. Second, taking into account the different ethnographic contexts of the project, we consider how relationships of trust are built in these times between researchers and informants, the advantages and limits imposed by a (more or less) hybrid ethnography, between cyberspace and the street. Third, we debate the challenges of the use of communication technologies in ethnographic work with street youth groups that are framed in diverse socio-political contexts. Finally, we comment on how these youth groups adapt to the new conditions of social control, participating in historical forms of resistance (illegality, formal economy, confrontations with the police). We conclude that the communication from the distance with members of street youth groups, being a useful ethnographic strategy to preserve contact, requires prior physical encounters where (eventually) trust is built.