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Narrative Criminology as Critical Criminology

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Abstract

Narrative criminology is a theoretical paradigm rooted in a view of stories as influencing harmful actions and arrangements. Narrative criminologists explore the storied bases of a variety of harms and also consider the narratives with which actors resist patterns of harm. We submit that narrative criminology is an apt and powerful framework for research in critical criminology because narrative criminology is fundamentally concerned with harm or resistance to harm, underscores collective involvement in the genesis of harm, illuminates the dynamism of harm and therefore the possibilities of resistance, and compels a reflexive stance on one’s research. Stories are recounted at multiple levels of social life. They are self-consciously and habitually generated, structured and creative, populated by things said and things not said. The complexities of stories are a good match for the complexities of crime, harm and justice in late modernity—core concerns of critical criminology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee, 901 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN, 37996-0490, USA

    Lois Presser

  2. Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo, PO Box 6706, St. Olavs Plass 5, 0130, Oslo, Norway

    Sveinung Sandberg

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Presser, L., Sandberg, S. Narrative Criminology as Critical Criminology. Crit Crim 27, 131–143 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-019-09437-9

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