Subjects in criminality discourse: On the narrative positioning of young defendants

Abstract

This essay locates itself in the context of “narrative criminology”. By means of analyses of the categorization work performed by young defendants in interviews, it is reconstructed how they conceptualize themselves interactively as subjects and/or “perpetrators”. This categorization not only performs a location within the, respectively, told story and the interactive situation of the interview; the interviewees also position themselves in cultural criminal discourse. The analysis of corresponding narrations can therefore contribute to understanding the connection of individual and public narratives on criminality. This is described on the basis of three case examples. With a “sad story”, a heroic story and references to individual cases that received particularly great public attention, the interviewees each develop context-specific categorizations and cultural positionings of “their” criminality and biography.

Where Is This Story Going? A Critical Analysis of the Emerging Field of Narrative Criminology

“…Clearly, then, the impact of stories on deviant and criminal behavior has deep roots in criminology. Although the label "narrative criminology" was only created a decade ago (Presser, 2009;Sandberg, 2010), some of the earliest known works of criminology, by authors like Henry Mayhew and John Clay, drew extensively on stories in seeking to understand the roots of criminal behavior (Bennett, 1981;Dollinger, 2018). As Scott and Lyman (1968, p. 62) point out, "Since it is with respect to deviant behavior that we call for accounts, the study of deviance and the study of accounts are intrinsically related, and a clarification of accounts will constitute a clarification of deviant phenomena."…”

“…As point out, when presenting research results, narrative researchers should also tell the story of the research itself. Dollinger (2018) has taken this further, building narrative context into the data analysis process using a method called Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA). By analyzing positions and categorizations of parts of the story, this tool allows the researcher to understand how cultural discourses on crime are structured and function.…”

“…In considering the context in which narratives are presented, MCA bridges the gap between (macro) discourses and local (micro) stories. Such analyses shed light on the "narrative positioning" (p. 481) of the story, and from there to broader cultural discourses (Dollinger, 2018).…”

Young victims’ positioning: Narrations of victimhood and support

“…The same functions can be seen in stories of everyday life (Bruner, 1991). Recently, criminologists (see Dollinger, 2018; Maruna, 2015; Presser, 2016) and victimologists (see Fohring, 2018; Pemberton et al, 2018b; Polletta, 2009; Van Dijk, 2009; Walklate et al, 2018) have taken an interest in how stories of crime and victimization are important in constructing meaning and identity. Narratives help people make sense of troublesome events (Walklate et al, 2018), but narrating victimizing events of a criminal character can be problematic, as the narrator risks rupturing his or her previously coherent narrative identity, social position, ‘relational setting’ (Somers, 1994) and preferred identity (Davies and Harré, 1990).…”

Playing games to re-story troubled family narratives in Danish maximum-security prisons

“…Moreover, prisoners’ self-narratives are often conceived as valuable analytical lenses to study how they position themselves as subjects, for instance, by maneuvering between divergent roles of hypermasculinity and softer versions of masculinity (see e.g. Dollinger, 2017; Kolind et al., 2017; McKendy, 2006; Presser and Sandberg, 2015; Søgaard et al., 2016). However, with a few exceptions, much of this work has tended to focus only on the prisoner and how he use self-narrative to relate to the offense, the victim, past childhood, the family, or projected hopes for future change.…”