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This reflection paper aims to provide insights into the gangs in El Salvador based on expressions of identity reconfiguration produced in the frame of a participatory photography experience with a group of men who belonged to those collectives. With their accounts, descriptions, and exercises of action-reflection they created an encounter of voices and views that dialogically analyzes, interprets and rebuilds some fragments from their realities, anchored to their realities and the meanings thereof. Identity in the context of a gang, the forms and meanings of violence as mediation in the social relationships, and the social stigma as a device producing the otherness are the three analytical lines allowing understanding how difficult it is to build an identity in the context of a stigmatizing society. All this also allows for the new self-concept built after the distancing from the violent practices as well as the awareness on the possibilities for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]