The Maori urban drift after the Second World War has deeply altered New Zealand’s sociocultural landscape. This thesis explores one of its direct aftermath: the emergence of Maori gangs as an attempt to reterritorialise the surrounding space in a logic of differen-tiation from the established order. Therefore, breaking off with the European city and Maori ancestral traditions was required. In this respect, so called “Maori” gangs could and can no longer be thought as the extension of Maori tribalism and precolonial belli-cism. This type of analysis freezes the Maori into essentialist considerations. This thesis introduces the Maori gang in its historical contingent dimension and aims – without sup-porting the essentialist approach – at pinpointing its very effects on gang members’ daily practices and also on their relationship with wider society.The same gangs that wanted to create their own space ended up acknowledging their Maori heritage. As a result, the members were not only to rewrite the history of their or-ganisation, as they found out other origins, but also precontact Maori history as they in-troduced elements that are typical of contemporary street gangs
