Sveinung Sandberg

What can “Lies” Tell Us about Life? Notes towards a Framework of Narrative Criminology

In criminology even studies that involve extensive fieldworks rely a great deal on research participants own accounts. The main question raised in the paper is: how do we know if research participants are telling the truth, and does it matter? It argues that criminological ethnographers have been too preoccupied with a positivist notion of truth, and the related question of whether research participants are telling the truth. For narrative analyses, this is not really important. The paper will present interview data from offenders to illustrate the fruitfulness of a narrative approach in criminology. Whether true or false, the multitude of stories people tell reflect, and help us understand, the complex nature of values, identities, cultures, and communities. The emphasis will be on offenders’ shifts between subcultural and more conventional narratives. The argument expands upon Presser’s notion of narrative criminology. The result is a framework that further challenges positivism and individualism in contemporary criminology.

Street capital : black cannabis dealers in a white welfare state

Introduction Trajectories to The River Street capital Marginalisation and resistance Drugs and masculinity Street dealing and drug markets Violence and street culture Between the street and the welfare state Conclusion.

Intoxicating stories: the characteristics, contexts and implications of drinking stories among Danish youth.

AIMS To study the characteristics, contexts and implications of drinking stories among young drinkers. METHODS Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted among Danish youth at a beach resort in Bulgaria. The fieldwork included three months of participant observation and 45 semi-structured interviews with a total of 104 tourists and 11 guides. The participants in the study were aged between 16 and 26 years. RESULTS The participants often shared drinking stories with each other. The stories they told involved alcohol consumption followed by one or several acts of transgression such as stripping, fighting or vomiting. They generally told the stories with amusement or pride. However, some stories were told in a critical tone and focused on negative experiences. The data suggest that for many participants, part of their reason for engaging in heavy drinking and drunken transgressions was that they wanted to build a repertoire of personal drinking stories. Their drinking behaviour was subtly motivated, inspired and guided by the drinking stories that they heard from others, as well as by the drinking stories that they themselves wanted to create. CONCLUSION There is an intimate interactional relationship between drinking behaviour and drinking stories. Drinking behaviours can generate stories, but the stories, in turn, influence behaviours and attitudes related to alcohol. Drinking stories are therefore key to understanding drinking among youth.

Cannabis culture: A stable subculture in a changing world:

In criminological and sociological studies of illegal drugs, the thesis of normalization suggests that when a drug goes from being a marginal to a widespread phenomenon, theoretical and methodological approaches that rely on subculture theory fall short. This article argues that normalization theory fails to recognize the existence of a distinct cannabis culture because it has a traditional understanding of subcultures as ‘groups of people’. The article suggests that a definition of subculture as a collection of rituals, stories and symbols is better for understanding contemporary subcultures and especially the cultural aspects of cannabis use. The conclusion is that although many use cannabis, it still signals opposition and cultural difference. A subcultural theoretical framework is thus crucial to understand illegal drug use. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 100 cannabis users in Norway.

Is cannabis use normalized, celebrated or neutralized? Analysing talk as action

In qualitative interviews with 100 cannabis users in Norway, three discursive repertoires were particularly frequent. The first emphasized how users were ‘normal’ with statements, such as ‘everyone smokes cannabis’ or ‘cannabis users are not different from others’. The second discursive repertoire emphasized the fascinating difference of both users and the drug. Many cannabis users, stated that cannabis was used by ‘free-thinking, open people’ and triggered creativity. The third discursive repertoire was different techniques of risk denial, arguing that cannabis ‘is just a plant’ or that cannabis use did not have any harmful consequences. These three discursive repertoires are the empirical foundations for three conflicting theoretical traditions in studies of illegal drugs. Cannabis has been described as ‘normalized’, interpreted in a subcultural framework, or researchers have emphasized how illegal drug use is neutralized by users. The interdiscursivity of Norwegian cannabis users challenge all three theoretical frameworks and can only be understood by analysing talk as action. This article argues that all three discursive repertoires can be understood as responses to stigmatization. The conclusion is that the theoretical framework of ‘normalization’ is not the best way to understand cannabis use in Norway and possibly elsewhere.

Are self-narratives strategic or determined, unified or fragmented? Reading Breivik’s Manifesto in light of narrative criminology:

Anders Behring Breivik carried out two terrorist attacks in Norway in 2011, killing 77 people. In a 1500-page Manifesto, he justifies the attacks, describes his ideology and presents his life-story. The Manifesto is Breivik’s attempt to present a coherent story, although one that shifts between different, sometimes competing, characters and narrative tones. He relies heavily on the narratives of an anti-Islamic or ‘counter-jihadist’ social movement, mainly present on the internet, but he makes creative adjustments. Some studies emphasize that narratives are unified, others that they are fragmented. Similarly, some emphasize the strategic and others the structural aspects of story-telling. This article further develops a theoretical framework of narrative criminology. The main argument is that offenders’ stories need to be analysed as agency conditioned by culture and context. Such stories must also be understood as attempts at coherency and unity, drawing on a wide variety of cultural narratives and discourses. It is suggested that researchers can benefit from further reflecting on the diversity of ways in which self-narratives are analysed and understood. In line with narrative criminology, it is suggested that when narrative and crime are closely connected, their study gets to the core of the complex causes of crime.

The Collective Nature of Lone Wolf Terrorism: Anders Behring Breivik and the Anti-Islamic Social Movement

Anders Behring Breivik, a lone wolf terrorist, killed 77 people in two terrorist attacks in Norway in 2011. This study uses framing theory from social movement studies to compare his Manifesto with the rhetoric of the anti-Islamic movement that inspired him. The anti-Islamic movement has a dual, and sometimes inconsistent, collective action framing. On the one hand, they portray Islam as an existential threat to the West and a warlike enemy; on the other, they promote peaceful and democratic opposition. The potential for radicalization is thus immanent. This case study reveals the importance of seeing lone wolf terrorists as acting from rhetoric embedded in larger social movements. It further demonstrates, in detail, the subtle and complex ways in which political narratives rejecting terrorism and political violence still end up inspiring such acts.

The medicalisation of revolt: a sociological analysis of medical cannabis users

In a qualitative study, we investigated the medical motives of 100 Norwegian cannabis users, none of whom had legal access to medical cannabis. Cannabis was used therapeutically for conditions such as multiple sclerosis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and rheumatism, as well as for quality of life conditions such as quality of sleep, relaxation and wellbeing. The borders between medical and recreational cannabis use were blurred. This article identifies strategies of medical cannabis users to gain social acceptance. Several respondents downplayed effects such as intoxication and euphoria. Others used the language of medicine and knowledge of current research in psychopharmacology. Cannabis was contrasted with the potential for abuse of prescription medicines. The medical cannabis movement has had little success in Norway. Medical professionals are unable to accept that users may be more knowledgeable than experts and medical users cannot discard the values of traditional cannabis culture. Calls for medical cannabis use are thus perceived as a gambit in attempts to have cannabis legalised. We argue that, despite having had little effect on health authorities, the medical cannabis movement may be having the unintended effect of medicalising cannabis use and using it as a cure for everyday problems.

Dealing with a gendered economy: Female drug dealers and street capital

Early studies of female drug dealers suggest that women are marginalized, passive victims. In contrast, more recent studies describe women as skilful and competent dealers. In a Bourdieu-inspired theoretical framework of ‘street capital’, we suggest that the truth is somewhere in between. Female dealers can be successful, but they face more obstacles than men do. The illegal hard-drug economy is gendered and favours men. In this paper we discuss how female drug dealers develop particular strategies to prove they still belong in ‘the game’. Four such strategies are emphasized: desexualization, violent posture, emotional detachment and service-mindedness. These are common strategies for all drug dealers, but the gendered economy forces female dealers to be particularly careful about their business and self-presentation.

Speaking with ethnographers: the challenges of researching drug dealers and offenders

In ethnographic research, expectations and guidelines presented in textbooks often differ from the practice of researchers in the field. This is especially true when studying criminals in general and drug dealers in particular. Based on qualitative interviews with 15 ethnographers studying drug dealers, we discuss seven important methodological issues that emerge when doing this type of research. These issues include approach/recruitment, enticing consent/payment, drug use of both participants and researchers, the use of audio recorders, physical and legal security, ethical dilemmas, and Institutional Review Board (IRB) problems. We argue that ethnographers need to make “standing decisions” about how to address issues about recruiting participants, enticing them to consent, recording interviews, consuming drugs or alcohol, addressing ethical dilemmas, and dealing with IRBs. Having these standing decisions will facilitate more methodologically rigorous and ethically sound decisions, and produce higher quality research.