ROGER MAGAZINE Action, personhood and the gift economy among so-called street children in Mexico City* Twenty-two-year-old Jorge 1 and eighteen-year-old Fernando, both considered ‘niños de la calle’ (‘children of the street’) by governmental and non-governmental organis- ations in Mexico City, frequently confided to me their frustration over not being able to save money to rent a room or buy new clothes for themselves or their wives and children because of what they spend drinking with others of their banda (gang), la banda de Ferrocarriles (the train station gang). For example, Jorge once told me in an interview: Often I want to change. I have a lot of plans and all that. But many times friends defeat me, no? I go to work the whole day from the morning until the afternoon. I want money because I want a pair of pants, a shirt, or something like that. I’m working and someone arrives and ‘What’s up? A beer?’ Another arrives and ‘Hey, let’s go to the pulque [an alcoholic drink derived from the maguey plant] 2 saloon.’ And it’s like it defeats me. I say ‘Okay, let’s go!’ and I leave my work and I go to hang out. In a pattern I observed and participated in many times, the drinking doesn’t end until everyone has spent all they have with them, making saving nearly impossible. To escape participation in these drinking activities, all they can do is attempt to avoid others of the banda by taking roundabout routes or by remaining outside the area of the city they consider home. Yet, while interaction with others of the banda brought about the drinking, they insisted that nothing was forced upon them. Jorge explained: ‘They don’t pressure you. No one is putting a gun to your head. It’s also because I like it.’ Thus while those of the banda view their participation in these drinking activities as being caused by others and thus as, in a sense, obligatory, at the same time they see it as voluntary. * I wish to acknowledge the generous financial support provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Fulbright Foundation and the Universidad Iberoamericana. I am grateful to Elizabeth Ferry, Sarah Hill, Carlota McAllister, Casey Walsh, David Wood, the par- ticipants in my fall 2001 urban anthropology graduate seminar, and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. I remain responsible for all shortcom- ings in the final version. 1 All names of informants are pseudonyms. 2 Pulque is the most popular alcoholic beverage in many of the villages in the countryside sur- rounding Mexico City (DeWalt 1979). Social Anthropology (2003), 11, 3, 303–318. © 2003 European Association of Social Anthropologists 303 DOI: 10.1017/S0964028203000223 Printed in the United Kingdom