Telling the collective story? Moroccan-Dutch young adults’ negotiation of a collective identity through storytelling

Researchers taking a social constructionist perspective on identity agree that identities are constructed and negotiated in interaction. However, empirical studies in this field are often based on interviewer–interviewee interaction or focus on interactions with members of a socially dominant out-group. How identities are negotiated in interaction with in-group members remains understudied. In this article we use a narrative approach to study identity negotiation among Moroccan-Dutch young adults, who constitute both an ethnic and a religious (Muslim) minority in the Netherlands. Our analysis focuses on the topics that appear in focus group participants’ stories and on participants’ responses to each other’s stories. We find that Moroccan-Dutch young adults collectively narrate their experiences in Dutch society in terms of discrimination and injustice. Firmly grounded in media discourse and popular wisdom, a collective narrative of a disadvantaged minority identity emerges. However, we also find that this identity is not uncontested. We use the concept of second stories to explain how participants negotiate their collective identity by alternating stories in which the collective experience of deprivation is reaffirmed with stories in which challenging or new evaluations of the collective experience are offered. In particular, participants narrate their personal experiences to challenge recurring evaluations of discrimination and injustice. A new collective narrative emerges from this work of joint storytelling

Van interventie tot stoppen met misdaad

ARTIKELEN: 1. A.E. Bottoms - Actief volwassen worden; een verklaring voor de daling in criminaliteit onder jonge volwassenen 2. V. van der Geest - Werk doet delinquentie afnemen 3. H. Werdmölder - Stoppen met crimineel gedrag; een kwalitatief, longitudinaal onderzoek naar Marokkaanse en Nederlandse mannen met een crimineel verleden 4. M. van Ooyen-Houben, C.N. Nas en J. Mulder - What Works en What goes Wrong? Over evidence-based beleid in de dagelijkse praktijk 5. F. McNeill, K. Anderson, S. Colvin, K. Overy, R. Sparks en L. Tett - Kunstprojecten en What Works; een stimulans voor desistance? 6. B. Vogelvang - Familierelaties en het stoppen met misdaad; aangrijpingspunten voor het reclasseringswerk 7. Internetsites. SAMENVATTING: De artikelen in dit themanummer gaan dieper in op vraagstukken rondom de levensloop/ontwikkeling van delinquenten en delinquent gedrag en gedragsinterventies voor (ex-)gedetineerden. Ook de rol die de reclassering kan spelen, komt aan de orde