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.

Keywords

defendants membership categorization analysis narrative criminology positioning youth crime

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