‘ISIS is not Islam’: Epistemic Injustice, Everyday Religion, and Young Muslims’ Narrative Resistance

Powerful narratives that invoke religious concepts – jihad, Sharia, shahid, Caliphate, kuffar, and al-Qiyāmah – have accompanied jihadi violence but also inspired robust counter-narratives from Muslims. Taking a narrative criminological approach, we explore the rejection of religious extremism that emerges in everyday interactions in a religious community under intense pressure in Western societies. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 90 young Muslims in Norway, we argue that young Muslims suffer epistemic injustice in their narrative exclusion from the mainstream, and assess the narrative credibility they try to maintain in the face of marginalization. We suggest that young Muslims’ religious narratives reject a mainstream characterization of Islam as essentially a religion of aggression, and simultaneously join forces with that mainstream in seeking the narrative exclusion of the jihadi extremists

Corona crimes : how pandemic narratives change criminal landscapes

The epidemic psychology of pandemics creates an atmosphere of panic and fear that can expedite new laws and facilitate criminogenic narrative arousal. Using narrative criminology, we discuss crimes that emerged from pandemic narratives in the early phases of the disease in Mexico. We show how pandemic master narratives have unexpected criminogenic effects; can be negotiated to make them criminogenic; and are opposed by more fundamentally criminogenic counter-narratives. We also show how pandemics repurpose justifications for traditional crimes and offer an opportunity for narrative repositioning of "criminals". Societal crises intensify the continuous narrative negotiation that always underlies the meaning of crime. Pandemics can therefore act as a prism through which social scientists can see how crime is an ongoing narrative accomplishment

Doing Marginalized Motherhood: Identities and Practices among Incarcerated Women in Mexico

This study examines the mothering practices and identities of incarcerated women in Mexico. Data gathered from repeated life-story interviews with 12 women, were analyzed to describe mothering practices in the different phases of incarcerated women’s’ lives. We argue that knowledge of the Latin American context is crucial to understand their experiences of motherhood. In a society based on familism and marianismo identities that suffers from a lack of welfare institutions, motherhood provided a way for socially and economically excluded women to escape destructive family environments and gain autonomy. Motherhood also provided a way to cope with the stigma of delinquency. Using the framework of Southern Criminology, we explore the importance of marginalized motherhood in this tradition. The results reveal the tragic paradox of motherhood for incarcerated women and the importance of studying marginalized mothering beyond the Global North

Stories of the "good father" : the role of fatherhood among incarcerated men in Mexico

This study examines the role of fatherhood for incarcerated men in Mexico, based on repeated life-story interviews with twelve men. We distinguish between their descriptions of fatherhood in the past and present and how they imagine the future, and explore how fathers describe their relationship with their children. The incarcerated men idealize the past with their children or tell stories of how they have changed from being "bad" to "good" fathers. They emphasize how they are still able to protect and educate their children from prison, reflecting widespread values of fatherhood. They admit that fathering while incarcerated is difficult and hope that things will be better in the future. In line with previous research on fathers in prison, we argue that storytelling of being "good fathers" is a way of projecting "normalcy", using one of the few gendered resources available, and is an escape from the harsh realities of prison life. Following insights from narrative criminology and desistance studies, we further argue that their stories of fatherhood can be a resource for reintegration into society. Finally, we suggest that inmates' emphasis on involved fatherhood might reflect diffusing narratives, ideals, and norms of parenting

The Emerald Handbook of Narrative Criminology

Narrative criminology is an approach to studying crime and other harm that puts stories first. It investigates how such stories are composed, when and why they are told and what their effects are. This edited collection explores the methodological challenges of analysing offenders' stories, but pushes the boundaries of the field to consider the narratives of victims, bystanders and criminal justice professionals. This Handbook reflects the diversity of methodological approaches employed in narrative criminology. Chapters discuss the practicalities of listening to and observing narratives through ethnographic and observational research, and offer accessible guides to using diverse methodological approaches for listening to and interpreting narrative data. With contributions from established and emerging scholars from all over the world, and from diverse fields including politics, psychology, sociology and criminology, the Handbook reflects the cutting edge of narrative methodologies for understanding crime, control and victimisation and is an essential resource for academics studying and teaching on narrative criminology

Symbolic capital and linguistic practice in street culture

This dissertation is based upon two ethnographic fieldwork projects that were conducted onthe streets of Oslo, Norway. The most important data are qualitative interviews with citydwellers and street drug dealers. The first fieldwork was conducted at an ‘open drug scene’setting and the second in a more dispersed street drug market. The most important researchparticipants were young ethnic minority men. Themes discussed include recruitment todrug use and drug dealing, violence, processes of marginalization, and narrativepresentations of self in street culture. One important argument is that marginalized peopleare in a continual ‘search for respect’, through both symbolic capital accumulation andcreative linguistic practice.Conceptualizing a street subculture has been important in studies of youth,delinquency, deviance and crime. The present dissertation contributes two new concepts tothis tradition. The first is street capital, which is understood as knowledge, competence,skills, and objects given value in a street culture. This concept is used to capture theaccumulation of symbolic capital in a violent street culture. It can be used when studyingpractical rationality, embodied dispositions or habitus, and the complex relationshipsbetween socio-economic constraints and human agency in street culture. The secondconcept introduced is gangster discourse. This concept is understood as a collection ofpersonal narratives primarily describing the toughness, smartness and sexual attractivenessof its speakers. This concept is used to capture subcultural linguistic practice emergingfrom a violent and masculine street culture.The two concepts are related, and the dissertation proposes a synthesis in whichgangster discourse is the ‘linguistic capital’ and most important ‘linguistic practice’ of aviolent street subculture where street capital is the dominant symbolic capital. Gangsterdiscourse is both constitutive of and constituted by street culture. Street culture is notyoung male offenders’ only cultural influence however, and the dissertation will reveal amultitude of cultural influences by describing their creative, complex and ambivalentlanguage use. Influences include mainstream society and concrete meetings with welfareorganizations. This interdiscursivity challenges previous categorizations of offenders into‘street’ or ‘decent’ and ‘conventionally’ or ‘unconventionally’ attached, and thus also ahomogenous understanding subculture

"Rett fra pikerommet, med ransel på ryggen?"

Plata var landets mest kjente oppholdssted for tunge stoffmisbrukere, og hadde i økende grad skapt bekymring og irritasjon de siste par årene før den ble splittet i juni 2004. Plata lå på sjøsiden av Oslo S, og var preget av en åpenlys omsetning av narkotika, nedkjørte stoffmisbrukere og åpenlys bruk av narkotika. Forut for og i etterkant av beslutningen om splittelse foregikk det en intens debatt. Motstanderne mente at dette var et forsøk på å "rense bybildet". Politiet avviste dette og gikk ut med at de hadde tre mål med aksjonen: Tryggheten i området skulle bli bedre; Omsetningen av narkotika skulle reduseres; Rekrutteringen til misbruk skulle bremses opp. Argumentet om Platas rolle i rekruttering av vanlig ungdom til misbruk av narkotika ble viktig. Det ble hevdet at mellom 500 og 600 ungdommer var "hentet fra miljøet på Plata". I denne rapporten spør vi om Plata virkelig spilte noen viktig rolle på denne måten. Datagrunnlaget er feltarbeid og kvalitative intervjuer med ungdommer som "hang" i sentrum, samt intervjuer med tidligere stoffmisbrukere og representanter for politiet og Uteseksjonen. I tillegg er det gjort en omfattende analyse av den politiske debatten.Prosjektet er finansiert av Justisdepartementet og utført ved Institutt for sosiologi og samfunnsgeografi (ISS), Universitetet i Oslo, i samarbeid med NOVA

"Rett fra pikerommet, med ransel på ryggen?"

Plata var landets mest kjente oppholdssted for tunge stoffmisbrukere, og hadde i økende grad skapt bekymring og irritasjon de siste par årene før den ble splittet i juni 2004. Plata lå på sjøsiden av Oslo S, og var preget av en åpenlys omsetning av narkotika, nedkjørte stoffmisbrukere og åpenlys bruk av narkotika. Forut for og i etterkant av beslutningen om splittelse foregikk det en intens debatt. Motstanderne mente at dette var et forsøk på å "rense bybildet". Politiet avviste dette og gikk ut med at de hadde tre mål med aksjonen: Tryggheten i området skulle bli bedre; Omsetningen av narkotika skulle reduseres; Rekrutteringen til misbruk skulle bremses opp. Argumentet om Platas rolle i rekruttering av vanlig ungdom til misbruk av narkotika ble viktig. Det ble hevdet at mellom 500 og 600 ungdommer var "hentet fra miljøet på Plata". I denne rapporten spør vi om Plata virkelig spilte noen viktig rolle på denne måten. Datagrunnlaget er feltarbeid og kvalitative intervjuer med ungdommer som "hang" i sentrum, samt intervjuer med tidligere stoffmisbrukere og representanter for politiet og Uteseksjonen. I tillegg er det gjort en omfattende analyse av den politiske debatten.Prosjektet er finansiert av Justisdepartementet og utført ved Institutt for sosiologi og samfunnsgeografi (ISS), Universitetet i Oslo, i samarbeid med NOVA