This article analyzes the representations of disadvantaged youth in Latin America, constructed as demonized figures, from an analytical framework that contributes to their deconstruction. Using the figurative method and digital ethnography tools, we analyze three paradigmatic figures of this type in the region: chakas, in Mexico, flaites in Chile, and pibes chorros in Argentina. We examine how they are constructed in the media, political and everyday language, identifying aesthetic, moral and cultural attributes marked by strong racist and class connotations. The performative character of these figures is highlighted, and spaces of resistance and resignifications of the stigma are analyzed through musical expressions such as rap, trap, cumbia and reggaeton. The theoretical and methodological approach developed in this work contributes to rethinking and declassifying disadvantaged groups and minorities, questioning the homogenizing images that negativize them, reinterpreting their practices as practices situated in contexts of symbolic and material disadvantages.
