”Jag har haft mycket roligt i mitt snurriga tillstånd”. En narrativ studie av vändningar, identiteter och emotioner i tidigare kriminella kvinnors livsberättelser.
(2015) SOCK04 20142Sociology
Department of Sociology
- Abstract
- The purpose of this study is to outline how women with a previous criminal record in Sweden shape their life stories. Using a narrative analysis of five interview transcripts we focus on what is told and how it is told. We examine which emotions and identities that emerge and also explore how established theories such as Laub’s and Sampson’s life course theory (2003) and ‘doing gender’ (West & Zimmerman 1987) can contribute to the interpretation of life stories. We argue that the women’s life stories follow certain rules for storytelling – a narrative logic – consisting of recurring themes, such as: turning points in a trajectory towards a non-criminal life, justifications of previous criminality and drug use, and “feeling rules”. We... (More)
- The purpose of this study is to outline how women with a previous criminal record in Sweden shape their life stories. Using a narrative analysis of five interview transcripts we focus on what is told and how it is told. We examine which emotions and identities that emerge and also explore how established theories such as Laub’s and Sampson’s life course theory (2003) and ‘doing gender’ (West & Zimmerman 1987) can contribute to the interpretation of life stories. We argue that the women’s life stories follow certain rules for storytelling – a narrative logic – consisting of recurring themes, such as: turning points in a trajectory towards a non-criminal life, justifications of previous criminality and drug use, and “feeling rules”. We emphasize how ‘doing gender’ as a theory helps us highlight gendered feeling rules, as for example how shame is related to unfulfilled motherhood. Building on and advancing Sampson’s and Laub’s lifecourse theory we identify important mechanisms and transitions in the process of desistance from crime. We stress the importance of paying attention to several different turnings points in narratives, something Sampson’s and Laub tend to disregard: thus we nuance their theory. Our results show that the women express a sort of ‘healing process’ in their stories, in which they can try out different identities, manifest a spectrum of emotions and portray themselves as in control of their current and future life direction. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/4941254
- author
- Edgren, Hanna LU and Grigoriadis, André LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SOCK04 20142
- year
- 2015
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- criminology, identities., women and crime, narrative analysis, life stories, sociology of emotions, gender, turnings points
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 4941254
- date added to LUP
- 2015-02-02 13:40:02
- date last changed
- 2015-02-02 13:40:02
@misc{4941254,
abstract = {{The purpose of this study is to outline how women with a previous criminal record in Sweden shape their life stories. Using a narrative analysis of five interview transcripts we focus on what is told and how it is told. We examine which emotions and identities that emerge and also explore how established theories such as Laub’s and Sampson’s life course theory (2003) and ‘doing gender’ (West & Zimmerman 1987) can contribute to the interpretation of life stories. We argue that the women’s life stories follow certain rules for storytelling – a narrative logic – consisting of recurring themes, such as: turning points in a trajectory towards a non-criminal life, justifications of previous criminality and drug use, and “feeling rules”. We emphasize how ‘doing gender’ as a theory helps us highlight gendered feeling rules, as for example how shame is related to unfulfilled motherhood. Building on and advancing Sampson’s and Laub’s lifecourse theory we identify important mechanisms and transitions in the process of desistance from crime. We stress the importance of paying attention to several different turnings points in narratives, something Sampson’s and Laub tend to disregard: thus we nuance their theory. Our results show that the women express a sort of ‘healing process’ in their stories, in which they can try out different identities, manifest a spectrum of emotions and portray themselves as in control of their current and future life direction.}},
author = {{Edgren, Hanna and Grigoriadis, André}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{”Jag har haft mycket roligt i mitt snurriga tillstånd”. En narrativ studie av vändningar, identiteter och emotioner i tidigare kriminella kvinnors livsberättelser.}},
year = {{2015}},
}