Narrative habitus: thinking through structure/agency in the narratives of offenders

Fleetwood, J. 2016. Narrative habitus: thinking through structure/agency in the narratives of offenders. Crime, Media, Culture, 12(2), pp. 173-192. ISSN 1741-6590 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Starting from the premise that experience is narratively constituted and actions are oriented through the self as the protagonist in an evolving story, narrative criminology investigates how narratives motivate and sustain offending. Reviewing narrative criminological research, this article contends that narrative criminology tends towards a problematic dualism of structure and agency, locating agency in individual narrative creativity and constraint in structure and/or culture. This article argues for a different conceptualisation of narrative as embodied, learned and generative, drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. Social action, which here includes storytelling, is structured via the habitus, which generates but does not determine social action. This theorisation understands structures and representations as existing in duality, according a more powerful role to storytelling. The article concludes by discussion of the implications of such a shift for narrative interventions towards offending.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659016653643

Keywords:

Agency, Bourdieu, narrative criminology, offending, structure

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Sociology > Unit for Global Justice (UGJ)

Dates:

DateEvent
1 June 2016Accepted
17 June 2016Published Online
1 August 2016Published

Item ID:

20767

Date Deposited:

11 Aug 2017 15:10

Last Modified:

18 Dec 2019 15:36

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/20767

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