Journal of Criminal Justice Education

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Narrative Analysis in Criminology

Sveinung Sandberg

To cite this article: Sveinung Sandberg (2022) Narrative Analysis in Criminology, Journal of
Criminal Justice Education, 33:2, 212-229, DOI: 10.1080/10511253.2022.2027479
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JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
2022, VOL. 33, NO. 2, 212–229
https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2022.2027479

Narrative Analysis in Criminology

Sveinung Sandberg
Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Crime is both storyable and storied, and narrative analysis is thus Received 20 December 2021
essential for criminologists. In this article I present four different Accepted 23 December 2021
ways of doing narrative analysis: thematic, structural, performative
and dialogical. These forms of analysis have different research KEYWORDS
questions and are associated with very different research tradi- Narrative analysis;
criminology; methods;
tions. Narrative analysis varies depending on whether researchers stories; crime
are interested in the content of what is told, how it is done, who
is narrating and where it is done, or what narratives are at play in
a story. The article describes the methodological process of these
different approaches and exemplifies their specific application in
an interview with a violent offender. It discusses the many advan-
tages, but also the limitations of each of the narrative analysis tra-
ditions. Furthermore, it presents the narrative work stories do,
such as entertaining, identity and boundary work, and processing
and integrating—and argues that it is essential to understand
these to capture the role of stories for crime.

Introduction
Narrative analysis delves into the content and form of stories, such as the roles or
characters of the story, which plot is being played out, what boundaries are drawn
together, and what genre the story is in. Through narrative ethnography, the social
context of storytelling can also be studied, such as how place, narrator, and audience
influence interpretation and effect. Stories grow out of objective social and economic
structures and must be understood based on variables such as gender, class, and eth-
nicity. At the same time, they also influence these structures. Stories or narratives are
held together by recognizable patterns of events and are characterized by having a
beginning, middle and end (Sarbin, 1986). A narrative can be long or short, a story
that summarizes a long life or some sentences that retell a specific episode.
Narratives can be understood in many ways, but most emphasize temporality, one
event after another, and causality, one event leading to the next. As a whole, the
events form the plot that gives the story meaning (Polletta, Chen, Gardner, & Motes,
2011). Stories are just one of many discursive forms, argument or dialogue are exam-
ples of others, but narrative analysis views stories as being particularly important.
Stories entertain, convey knowledge and process trauma by organizing our

ß 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
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 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION 213

experiences and giving them meaning. They selectively draw on experiences and
reflect and construct the identity and self-understanding of the narrator (Holstein &
Gubrium, 2000). Stories come in many forms, but are characterized by a special struc-
ture, a plot, and a limited set of roles.
This article emphasizes the methodology of narrative studies and shows how a nar-
rative analysis in criminology may be carried out.1 Such work has often gone under
the label of narrative criminology (e.g. Fleetwood, Presser, Sandberg, & Ugelvik, 2019;
Presser & Sandberg, 2015a; Sandberg & Ugelvik, 2016), but narrative analysis in crimin-
ology has, and can, also be carried out outside of this framework. The main aim of
this paper is to demonstrate four types of narrative analysis and traditions. I do this
primarily by engaging in detail with an interview with Fredrik and his many different
stories of violence (see also Presser & Sandberg, 2015b). The narrative approaches
demonstrated are the same for larger data sets and other kinds of stories and
offenders. The hope is that showing narrative analysis in detail will inspire more narra-
tive work in criminology than writing general advice.

Fredrik’s story(ies)
Fredrik was interviewed in a Norwegian prison as part of a larger project on drug deal-
ers. He was 28 years old, an ethnic Norwegian, and had been involved in crime since
he was young, especially fighting. Illegal drugs were an important part of his life, espe-
cially amphetamines, ecstasy, GHB, and cannabis. Fredrik had bad experiences with
the police and did not trust them. He was also well-known to the police and enjoyed
telling dramatic stories about his encounters with them. The last time he was wanted
by the police, he said “they arrived at my place brandishing MP5 machine guns and
riot shields. They abseiled down from the roof on ropes to my living room window.”
Fredrik had many dramatic stories like this one, commenting: “I reckon I could tell 40
to 50 stories that were like that, exactly the same kind of thing. I might not have
been involved in all of them, but … .” His narrative repertoire consisted of stories
about himself, but also about friends and acquaintances. Storytelling was important to
him, and when he spoke, he was intensely present, upset, angry, and immersed him-
self in the stories he told. It was as if he travelled back to the situation and relived
them. He was boastful, but also used the stories to understand himself and explain
who he was to others.
The psychologist Jerome Bruner (1986) distinguishes between paradigmatic and
narrative knowledge. While paradigmatic mode is characterized by the argument and
the ideal of a formal, mathematical system of description and explanation, the narra-
tive mode is characterized by the story. Here, the point is not so much verifiability and
logic, but rather good stories and gripping drama, which should be believable. While
the paradigmatic logic conveys knowledge through systematic reasoning, narratives
convey knowledge by placing insights into specific experiences. Stories provide an
opportunity to convey experience, knowledge, and insight without formal logical

1
Parts of this paper has previously been published in Danish: Sandberg, S. (2018): Narrativ Kriminologi – tematisk,
strukturel, performativ og dialogisk analyse. pp. 233–260. In Michael Hviid Jacobsen (Ed.) Metoder i kriminologien:
Kilder, teknikker og tematikker. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
214 S. SANDBERG

reasoning. Narrative knowledge is thus an ambivalent form of imparting knowledge

that allows audiences to identify with experiences they themselves do not share, with-
out necessarily agreeing or disagreeing (Polletta & Lee, 2006). Stories are central to all
social classes and groups. They reflect cultural background and class, but are also an
opportunity to transcend these. Such characteristics makes stories and narrative know-
ledge a particular important resource for groups that have marginalized opinions and
experiences. For Fredrik for example, storytelling was a way to both entertain and con-
vey knowledge about his own life and the environment he was a part of.

Elements of the story

The linguist William Labov (1972) has outlined the six elements of a story. He
describes how many narratives begin with an abstract that summarizes the entire story
in a sentence or two. This is then followed by an orientation that gives context to the
narrative and says something about who is involved. It also states the location, time,
and other relevant background information. The complicating action is a key element
of the plot and introduces a new event or conflict. Evaluations may occur at any time
during the story and are assessments that give a hint as to why the story is worth tell-
ing. A complete narrative also offers a resolution, which is the other main element of
the plot. This tells you what happens at the end and resolves the conflict. Finally, the
narrative has a coda or conclusion that gives the story general meaning. The elements
of the story do not necessarily have to take place in this order, and some of them
may be missing alltogether, but according to Labov, they are explicitly or implicitly
present in all stories.
Fredrik’s stories were closely intertwined and were he told one story after another.
One story about a confrontation with an alleged pedophile was particularly important.
Fredrik began by saying, “I can’t be bothered telling the whole story.” Without stop-
ping, however, he went on to give a detailed description of what had happened.
Fredrik told the story without the interviewer interrupting him or asking questions,
and it had the familiar structure of a story. Following Labov’s (1972) narrative ele-
ments, it began with a synopsis consisting of two sentences, followed by the back-
ground of the dramatic events:
Abstract
… We then went after a pedophile in this small town.2
Orientation
A female friend of mine who was supposed to go to that guy’s house, a 55-year-old
called Kjetil. … He’d bought her some of that sexy underwear with an open crotch, you
know, the stuff you can buy at Rabbit Shop. She thought she was going to meet one of
her girlfriends at his house to make some food and watch a movie and stuff.
Complicating action
Well, she gets there, and the underwear is lying on the table. He asks her to put it on
and stuff. When all this happened, she wasn’t more than 18–19 years old.

2
Some sections have been omitted to ensure anonymity.
 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION 215

Evaluation
I think it’s a bit, you know. It’s a bit nasty.
Complicating action
And then there’s the other girl who was there, the one she thought was a good friend,
she’s sitting there with that Kjetil guy, and they sit and start shooting up heroin together.
Sitting there and masturbating in front of her and that. She went to the bathroom, and
then she calls me and says she’s such-and-such a place, she’s terrified, and they’re going
to inject her and stuff like that. The thing is, she injects herself sometimes, uses
amphetamines, but she doesn’t use heroin. And when there’s brown stuff in the one
they’ve got, it’s pretty clear what he’s trying to get her to do.”
Resolution
So, I say, ‘Just book a cab and get over here right away’. Then she says she can’t afford it.
Then I say: ‘I’ll pay for the cab, just get over here right away’.
Orientation
So, when she arrived, she just sat for an hour and looked straight ahead. I tried to talk to
her, she was just totally apathetic, just like that.
Complicating action
Then, as the night went on, I found out what had happened.
Resolution (of a story)/complicating action (of new story)
The next day, I go down there, took her with me and said, ‘You just go in, just ring the
doorbell like normal. You go in, I’ll come in a minute after you’. So, she goes in there,
and a minute passes. Then me and a buddy of mine go in. We go in after her. Well, he’s
sitting there in some little panties in his lazy boy recliner with that girlfriend of his, you
know. Then I knock on the door frame, stand in the entrance and then he sees me, and
he starts getting nervous as hell. Then I say, ‘How are you doing?’ ‘Yes, yes—I’m fine and
that. How are you doing?’, he asks me. Then I say, ‘Well, put it this way, I think things are
going a lot better for me than they are for you’. So, then I tie his head to the door
handle with a thin rope. He tried to struggle free for a while. So, … yes, there were
bruises all over his body, had been tied up for a while. If some people hadn’t turned up,
he’d probably have looked a lot, lot worse than what he did.
Evaluation/orientation
“He reported it to the police. I stole a camera from him. I knew he had done it to many
girls. I found pictures where he undresses girls that are no more than 12-13 years old. I
got so mad when I saw those images that I deleted them, instead of showing them to
the police. I should have gone to the police. There were so many pictures in that camera.
I just watched the first seven, that was enough, then I deleted them. I don’t know what
was in the rest, it was really stupid of me, not to show them to the police.

Fredrik’s story is about how he confronts Kjetil, a sleazy guy who exploits his friend
and other young girls. The story has two complicating elements (underwear and nee-
dle), and only hints were given in relation to the sexual assaults committed. This is a
common feature of stories: the listener must fill in the missing pieces. Fredrik’s story
also contains some evaluations and descriptions of Kjetil that justify the violence he is
subjected to (he is a pedophile). The story has two resolutions. One is when Fredrik
gets his female friend to book a cab, and the other is when he goes after Kjetil to
avenge the abuse. The latter is the most important regarding the story’s plot.
216 S. SANDBERG

Avenging the abuse is also the beginning or the complicating element of a new
story in which Kjetil hires someone to get back on Fredrik. This story followed straight
away, intertwined with the first story:
Complicating element
He paid them about 90,0003 to come and pick me up, and drop me off in the woods,
because there were others there waiting to take over. I was sitting inside my apartment
with a buddy, sitting with a knife under the couch cushion, and three of them came in.
And they were walking around and talked on the phone, saying: ‘Yes, he’s sitting here,
yes, yes, we’ll take him with us’. And then he says, ‘You’re coming with us’.
Resolution
Then I say: You guys are not coming in with your shoes on in the living room, go out
into the hallway and take off your shoes. Then they went into the hallway and took off
their shoes. Then I took out the knife, put it on my lap. When they came back in, I was
sitting with the knife on my lap. Then I said: I’ll come with you guys on one condition,
and that’s that you do it at your own risk. Because I’ll guarantee you that there will be
fewer people in the car when we get there than there were when we left. So, in the end,
they chose not to take me away. They’d been given 90,000 to take me on that road trip,
drive me 25 miles.
Coda
So, yes, it was … It was a crazy time, sort of. And yes, I probably had a reputation for
being a little crazy back then.

In the second story, Fredrik is the victim. He gets out of it by threatening to use
violence. In both stories, Fredrik appears to be a cold and calm tough guy. First, he
confronts a pedophile, then he stands up to some other criminals, and later we will
see how he stands up to the police.
The different narrative elements drive the story forward. The orientation introduces
place and context, new events make things more complicated, these are explained,
and then they are resolved. We can see that there are several such sequences in the
stories, which are resolved in a common coda for both stories. This returns the story
to the audience and places it into a larger context. In this story, the coda relates to
Fredrik’s background of being violent and out of control (“a little crazy”). The story
also has a future perspective, describing violence as a potential opportunity for him.
Although he describes it as a thing of the past, the story shows that he possesses the
ability to commit excessively violent acts also in the present.
There is good reason to believe that he is exaggerating, and the quotes that
Fredrik spices the story up with should be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless,
they say something important about values, identity, and culture in the environment
in which is a part (Sandberg, 2010). There is a special form of masculinity that domi-
nates his storytelling, and violence is important. Men must expect violence, stand up
to potential insults and be able to defend themselves. Fredrik’s story conveys this cul-
ture and identity, regardless of how true the story or details of the story are. The ele-
ments of a story are absolutely crucial to understanding the structure of a story, and
thereby how values are conveyed and transferred through narratives (Lauger, 2014).

3
Norwegian kroner, about 9000 US dollars.
 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION 217

Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish the different elements of stories, and

they occasionally merge into each other. Language, however, always has a given struc-
ture, which enables but also limits the conveyance of meaning. Everyone must relate
to pre-existing stories and the recognizable structure of a narrative when narrating.
Those who break too much with established stories and genres risk not being under-
stood. In this way, stories make certain actions more accessible than others.

Forms of narrative analysis

Narrative analysis sometimes studies complete stories, as shown above. Other times, it
only looks at parts of the story, such as the complicating element (action) or evalu-
ation and coda (meaning) (Lieblich, Rivka, & Zilber, 1998). Sociologists Jaber F.
Gubrium and James A. Holstein (2009) distinguish between studying what is being
told and how it is done. The first is the dominant approach in social science, while the
second is more common in linguistics. Narrative analysis is typically concerned with
the combination of the content and form of the language. For example, a narrative
form can reinforce the content or steer it in specific directions.
Sociologist Cathrine Riessman (2008) divides narrative analysis into thematic, struc-
tural, dialogic/performance, and visual analysis. Table 1 below is based on this division,
but distinguishes between dialogical and performative narrative analysis, and excludes
the slightly more peripheral visual analysis. My model also includes associated aca-
demic traditions to provide some scholarly context:

Table 1. The relationship between forms of narrative analysis, research questions and methodo-
logical traditions.
Form of analysis Questions Associated traditions
Thematic What Narrative content analysis
Structural How Sociolinguistics, narratology
Performance Who, when, why (concrete) Narrative ethnography
Dialogic Who (abstract) Dialogical narrative analysis

Forms of narrative analysis are related to different research traditions that pose dif-
ferent research questions. In what follows, I will go into detail on these traditions by
showing how Fredrik’s story can be analyzed and interpreted in different ways
depending on the interests of researchers.

Thematic narrative analysis

Thematic narrative analysis revolves around the question of what the story is about.
The content of what is being told is central to the analysis, such as the meaning and
the point/coda. Thematic analysis rarely looks at language, form, or interaction, and
therefore resembles thematic analysis or thematic coding more generally in qualitative
methodology. The main difference is that the full stories are usually included in the
analysis, and it is the themes from these that are theorized across the cases (Riessman,
2008; Sandberg, Tutenges, & Pedersen, 2019). A thematic analysis of Fredrik’s story for
example, will identify what the researchers understand as the most relevant overall
218 S. SANDBERG

content of his story. Arguably, two themes stand out. The first theme involves the
descriptions of how he masters these violent situations using expertise and skill. He
does not become fazed and is superior to his opponents. The second theme is of a
more ethical/moral nature and concerns justifying the violence.
The first theme can be seen in the descriptions of how Fredrik takes on the role of a
leader and gives commands (‘Just book a cab’) and the episodes leading up to the state-
ment “So in the end, they chose not to take me away.” Throughout the entire story, he
demonstrates that he is not afraid of violent confrontations, and that he masters what is
often described as street culture (Ilan, 2015). Kjetil and Fredrik both belong to a violent
subculture, where it is important to have a “crazy” reputation to avoid being subjected to
violence. Therefore, an important theme in the story is that Fredrik is potentially violent,
and that he acts calmly in violent situations where others would have panicked. He also
knows how to act, knows the rules of this environment, and is not afraid of anyone. This
theme can also be seen when Kjetil wants revenge. He avoids involving the police and
chooses instead to hire someone get back at Fredrik.
Stories of violent episodes both use and clarify cultural ideas in a violent subcul-
ture. Many of the statements in Fredrik’s narrative could have been coded thematically
as street culture (Bourgois, 2003) or street code (Anderson, 1999), and seen in light of
the long tradition of subculture studies regarding violent environments. One could
argue that the stories transfer street culture between people and groups (Lauger,
2014). A thematic narrative analysis would go into detail on this theme to identify the
characteristics, rules, and norms of this cultural universe.
While street culture is most evident in the action (orientation and complicating
element), the theme of morality/justification is more evident in the evaluations (‘I think
it’s a bit, you know. It’s a bit nasty’), and in the descriptions of the villain (‘pedophile’).
This is another important theme of the story, where many of the statements, as well
as the whole story, can be seen as an example of narrating moral violence. The story
is about how Fredrik protects women in his circle of friends and how he can go to
great lengths to defend them. This can be interpreted as a variant of certain patri-
archal cultures, where men are expected to stand up for and defend women.
Together, these themes describe how traditional patriarchal concepts of honor are
woven into street culture. A thematic narrative analysis can identify these two and
other themes in the story and discuss how they shed light on different dimensions of
the people and the phenomenon under study.
For most researchers doing thematic narrative analysis, it will be important that the
themes identified are not unique to one story or one individual, but represent some-
thing greater. The interview with Fredrik was one of 40 interviews involving incarcer-
ated drug dealers. In studies using a narrative approach from this data set, we identify
the different stories of violence more generally among drug dealers (Sandberg,
Tutenges, & Copes, 2015), the role of humor in these stories (Sandberg & Tutenges,
2019), and sum it up in what we describe as the narrative repertoire of street culture
(Sandberg & Fleetwood, 2017). Often, a thematic narrative analysis will similarly iden-
tify the central themes of stories in a data set and use it as a starting point for find-
ings and discussion.
 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION 219

Structural narrative analysis

A structural analysis emphasizes the form of a story. The question asked is how a story
is organized. Structural narrative analysis is inspired by sociolinguistics and narratol-
ogy. It is more concerned with the small building blocks of the story than with the
societal context, institutional constraints, power relationships and greater cultural dis-
courses. Therefore, it often faces criticism from narrative traditions that are more asso-
ciated with the social sciences. At the same time, it is through details and concrete
narrative techniques at the micro level that stories work, and thereby gain societal
significance.
In Fredrik’s story, I have already described Labov’s (1972) narrative elements.
Another common approach in the structural tradition, based on the work of the lin-
guist and folklore researcher Vladimir Propp (1968), is to identify characters. These
broad character types were initially identified in Russian folk tales, but are surprisingly
easy to find in most stories. The most important roles are the hero, the villain, the
donor, the dispatcher, the helper, the princess, and the false hero. A story does not
necessarily require all of these different characters being present, but some of them
usually appear. Fredrik, for example, is the hero of his own story, which is common,
but he is also the dispatcher. The villain is Kjetil, the alleged pedophile, and the helper
is the friend (‘buddy’). Characters do not necessarily have to be people, they may also
be objects or characteristics. The princess describes some form of reward that heroes
receive if they manage the mission. For example, it might be honor, respect, or
money. The reward in Fredrik’s stories is closely related to his friend, which has prin-
cess-like characteristics. He goes on this mission to protect her honor and win
her respect.
Narrative form and structure are fundamental to how we understand ourselves and
are perceived by others, and therefore has major consequences. For example, many
economically or socially marginalized criminal offenders will find it difficult to talk
about themselves as anything other than “heroes” in a violent subculture or “victims”
of an oppressive society (Sandberg, 2009). This is also typically how society at large
perceives them, which limits their possibility to be integrated into a more law-abiding
lifestyle. Had the stories they were surrounded by been open to other or more com-
plex roles, this could have been avoided.
Cultural sociologist Philip Smith (2005) points out the surprisingly simple cultural
resources that give the world meaning. Narrative genres are a crucial cultural structure
that frames stories and produces meaning. Genre can describe the content of a variety
of similar stories (and thereby resemble themes), or describe typical stylistic, structural,
and narrative forms of a group of stories, such as comedy, romance, tragedy, or irony
(McAdams, 1993). Fredrik’s story is a typical romance, characterized by a hero with
idealistic motives who overcomes a series of obstacles, challenges and evil enemies
who get what they deserve. It has a “happy ending” and a narrative mode that leaves
listeners with a good feeling, even though the story might shock them along the way.
In the same way as characters, narrative genres can also restrain culturally marginal-
ized groups. They are often trapped in the genre of tragedy, where the characters are
left without agency and have little room for maneuvering their social world.
220 S. SANDBERG

There are a number of other interesting aspects regarding narrative form. Linguist
Patricia O’Connor (2000) has conducted a thorough structural narrative analysis of
inmates’ stories. Here, I only have room to point out the most striking feature of
Fredrik’s story, namely the use of indirect speech or quotes:
Then I say, ‘How are you doing?’ ‘Yes, yes—I’m fine and that. How are you doing?’, he
asks me. Then I say: Well, put it this way, I think things are going a lot better for me than
they are for you.

The use of indirect speech gives the story a dramatic and almost cinematic elem-
ent, and Fredrik’s “one-liners” stick to the audience’s memory. Indirect speech also
gives stories more authenticity, in that the situation is played out and authority is
shifted from the narrator to the person being quoted. This also applies when the per-
son quoted is the person themselves (Shuman, 2012). When indirect speech is used,
the story no longer appears as the narrator’s words and interpretation, but as actual
statements in a specific situation. A structural narrative analysis will look at narrative
techniques such as the elements, characters and other narrative techniques, forms and
mechanisms and discuss the impact they have on the storyteller, story, and the recep-
tion by the audience.

Performative narrative analysis

Riessman (2008) describes dialogic/performative narrative analysis as the study of how
speech is created in interaction and through dialog. In this approach to narrative ana-
lysis, a close reading of the narrative context is important, and the interaction in which
narrating takes place is considered crucial regarding which narrative is told and how it
is understood by the audience. Storytelling is seen as a performance, with an audi-
ence, and one or more storytellers who have a purpose or aim when telling a story. In
the dialogic/performative tradition, the question is not so much what the story is
about or how it is told, but who speaks, when and why. In Riessman’s version, it is
also important that stories ambivalent and open to interpretation, and one often
examines the different voices in each individual story.
In her account of dialogic/performative analysis, Riessman (2008) merges two narra-
tive traditions that may become clearer if we separate them. The performative trad-
ition is best illustrated by what Gubrium and Holstein (2008) describe as narrative
ethnography. This approach studies the environment of storytelling and storytelling as
practice. For example, one might look at how institutional context governs stories and
the understanding of them in special directions. In the interview with Fredrik, the
prison is an important context, and the interview must be understood in light of what
Donileen R. Loseke (2007) calls organizational or institutional narratives. For example,
one might imagine that prison interviews will bear the mark of post-rationalizations
and legitimization, that the narrators associate the interviewer with public institutions
and adapt the story to what they think the “system” wants to hear, or that the stories
will be influenced by a particular culture that exists among the prisoners.
However, prison is not the only institutional context at play in the conversations
with Fredrik. A research interview is also an institutionalized practice that influences
stories. Fredrik is aware of this and at one point interrupts one of his stories by saying,
 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION 221

“This is going to be used as research now, I can tell you stuff.” In this way, the prison
context is in contrast to the interview context. In the above quote, it is as if Fredrik
reminds himself that the research interview takes precedence and that he can tell
things he would not otherwise share with authorities in prison. For others, conducting
the interview in prison may be more important, and they may be more reluctant. In
qualitative interviews long, more elaborate, and detailed stories are also a natural con-
sequence. In a normal conversation, talking for long periods of time without letting
others participate in the conversation would be perceived as being rude. However,
many of Fredrik’s stories are long monologues, probably encouraged by the researcher
and the research interview context.
Another important part of performative narrative analysis is to look at social inter-
action and how the conversation proceeds (Gubrium & Holstein, 2008). If the audience,
for example the interviewer, shows an interest in a theme or story, it will often be
embellished. In addition to more explicit “probing” (asking questions in different
ways), it is a common way of steering the interview in the direction one wants. If one
laughs at a funny story, there is a high likelihood of getting a new humorous story,
and similarly, it is likely to come a new sad story if listeners show that they are
affected by the first. A performative analysis could for example, emphasize that the
reason Fredrik tells so many stories, in these particular ways, is because he finds that
they affect, entertain and are of interest to his conversation partner.
In narrative performance analysis, the temporal dimension is also important. For
example, parts of Fredrik’s account of the attack on the alleged pedophile, such as car-
rying a knife and being a bit “crazy” and a “helper” was introduced earlier in the inter-
view. In this part of Fredrik’s storytelling, the interviewer played an important role:
Interviewer: One often thinks that drug scene violence is linked to business, sales and
major deals that quickly get out of hand and things like that.
Fredrik: Yes, perhaps. But I reckon it’s more about people staying awake for too long.
People start imagining that situations are a bit different than they really are. People
become really fucking unstable. Methamphetamine, if you take too much
methamphetamine for a couple of years, it absolutely destroys people’s minds in a way
that it … But I always have buddies who get involved in some kind of nonsense, and
then threats start to come in from here, there and everywhere. And the reason I carried a
knife was because things started to get really messy. Buddies who got themselves caught
up in things. All that kind of stuff. I wandered around, I lived on a couch here and there.
Basically, it was really messy and crazy. The most important thing I had was that knife,
you know.
Interviewer: Was your role to help if …
Fredrik: Yes, always.
Interviewer: … it got messy, as you say.
Fredrik: I always did it, you see. Everyone knew I was crazy if things like that happened,
you know.
Interviewer: Okay, so you had a bit of a reputation for being a person who could …
Fredrik: Yes, because I …
222 S. SANDBERG

Note how the narrative develops in close interaction and through what conversa-
tion analysis describes as “turn-taking” (Sacks, 1992). This is also the most common
way in which stories come about. The conversation partners collaborate on the story.
The interviewer has a special narrative in mind (“violence is linked to business, sales”).
This is not confirmed, and together they develop another story about how the vio-
lence is related to drug-related chaos, disorder and how Fredrik is the helper or good
buddy. The interviewer helps Fredrik to progress by summarizing what he has said (“it
got messy, as you say”) and suggests possible interpretations or evaluations (“so you
had a bit of a reputation for being a person who could … ”). It is only after this com-
mon interpretation that the story about the attack on the pedophile emerges. Here,
Fredrik needs less “help.” However, the background is that the interviewer has sug-
gested an evaluation or truth about Fredrik’s life (he was a person that sorted things
out for other people), which the story about the attack on the alledged pedo-
phile confirms.
Qualitative interviewers influence data through “active interviews” (Holstein &
Gubrium, 1995). This is inevitable and can be a resource. Researchers can steer data
collection in the direction they want, but they must still be aware of this when they
later interpret the stories that emerge from the interviews. How much information
should be included regarding the course of the conversation/interview, the actors, and
the time/place/space of data, is a constant consideration when writing out research.
While this is a crucial factor in understanding the stories told, it may also remove the
focus from the content or form of the story, in cases where that is the focus of
research. Gender, age, and ethnicity play a role, but it is just as often about the
dynamics of the interview. There is a limit to how many stories a person has in their
narrative repertoire, and it is difficult to make up new stories during an interview (see
also Damsa & Ugelvik, 2017). For example, it is likely that Fredrik has told the story
about the alleged pedophile many times before, and that he will tell it again outside
of interview situations. In such cases, dwelling too much around the context of the
interview may take away the attention from more interesting aspects of storytelling.

Dialogical narrative analysis

While ethnographically inspired studies of narrative performance ask specific questions
about who speaks, when they speak, and why they speak, what I choose to describe
as dialogical analysis asks a more abstract question about the different voices that can
be found in stories. Sociologist Arthur W. Frank (2010, 2012) has developed what he
calls dialogical narrative analysis influenced by, among others, the philosopher and lit-
erary critic Mikhail M. Bakhtin’s (1981) theories of intertextuality. His approach has
much in common with performance analysis, but he also asks about the more over-
arching voices that can be heard in a story.
Frank suggests that dialog exists not only in meetings with the audience, but also
in the narrative itself, and describes an “individual voice as a dialog between two
voices” (Frank, 2012, 35). For example, Fredrik’s story can be interpreted as containing
at least three different voices or cultural narratives (Loseke, 2007). We have already
discussed the first two in the section on thematic narrative analysis: The subcultural
 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION 223

narrative of violence and street masculinity in which respect is important, and a moral
narrative that is typically highlighted in studies on neutralization (Maruna & Copes,
2005). There is also a third voice in his stories. This is a voice that is entertaining and
funny, involving quick-witted remarks and drama. This grows out of popular culture,
such as action movies, and imitates this genre in oral narratives. The genre makes the
narrator appear funny, outgoing, and entertaining. In these stories, the hero of the
story (often the narrator) appears heroic, but also possesses a coolness during the dra-
matic situations that is fascinating to the audience.
In total, there are at least three voices in Fredrik’s narrative, and dialogic narrative
analysis looks at how these autonomous, independent voices are combined into a
new entity. They oppose each other, are combined, but also create new narratives.
The ambivalence created by this intertextuality allows the audience to choose which
one they wish to focus on. Different people will probably hear different narratives.
Some will be shocked by the violence and thus let the street subcultural narrative
overshadow the others. Some will see his stories as “excuses” and thus reduce every-
thing to neutralization. Others, meanwhile, may focus on the funny and dramatic ele-
ments and place it into a more entertaining genre, where the level of truth is
subordinate to the seductive character of the storytelling. Dialogical narrative analysis
emphasizes that stories are fundamentally ambivalent. They are open to interpretation
and enter into dialogue with the audience about possible meanings.

Narrative work
Both performance and dialogical narrative analysis are concerned with what stories
are used for in social interaction. This is sometimes described as the narrator’s strat-
egies, which may exaggerate the cognitive element of storytelling. We usually tell sto-
ries because it is expected in certain contexts, without having deliberate strategies or
goals when doing so. Other times, the story’s functions are described in the same
manner, which is also problematic. We should be open to the fact that many stories
do not have any explicit functions, at least none that can be directly linked back to
sustaining the societal context of the story in the mindset of structural functionalism.
Frank (2010) is critical of such perspectives on storytelling and suggests that we rather
look at the work stories do in social situations. This encapsulates some of the thinking
behind strategies and functions, but without assuming anything very specific about
the actors or devoting oneself to functionalism.
One common way to do narrative analysis is to try to identify the narrative work
that stories do. This means interpretating what possible consequences stories might
have for the storyteller and environments where they are told. As opposed to other
parts of narrative analysis (e.g. structural and thematic), but in line with performative
and dialogic narrative analysis, there is more room for the researcher’s subjective inter-
pretation when analyzing the work of stories for individuals and in social contexts.
There is not one way to validate stories’ work, but extensive knowledge and a feel for
storytellers and the social context they occupy, aided for example by narrative ethnog-
raphy is helpful (Fleetwood & Sandberg, 2021). Many criminologists will be particularly
224 S. SANDBERG

interested in the societal impact of narratives and studying the work stories do has
therefore been important in this discipline.
The most obvious thing stories do is to report on things that have happened and
legitimize it afterwards (Maruna & Copes, 2005). Because crime is highly storyable and
needs justification, this narrative work is particularly important in criminology. Stories
also arouse crime and harm (Presser, 2013, 2018), which has been a particular
emphasis in narrative criminology (Presser & Sandberg, 2015a). However, stories also
do a whole host of other things. They entertain, frighten, fascinate, create, and sustain
identities, process and integrate experiences, and convey and explore emotions.
Below, I will briefly go through some of the work that stories do. This is only intended
as some illustrations, and the list could have been much longer. The work that stories
do depends on social situations, place, time, space and not least the researcher’s
interpretations.

Stories entertain
On several occasions, we have discussed how Fredrik’s stories have an underlying,
entertaining dimension. In one of his other stories of violence, this was even
more explicit:
The police were following us. We were going to visit a friend, and a police car was tailing us.
No matter where we drove, they followed us, we realized that at some point, when we stop
the car, they’ll probably want to talk to us. We almost got to the place we were going, then
the driver turns onto a forest road, a tractor road into the forest, he just drives to the end,
then he says to me: When we get to the end, we all jump out, and we’ll really give it to
them. So, I took the baseball bat that was in the back of the car. Drove to the end. Got out
of the car with the baseball bat. Stood behind some trees. All of a sudden, the police car
stopped. They knew exactly what was going to happen, because both of our car doors were
open. Then they started reversing. We jumped back into the car and reversed as fast as we
could, started chasing the police. Then the police tried to get away!

Entertaining stories often revolve around something unexpected, where familiar sit-
uations are turned on their heads (Sandberg & Tutenges, 2019). In Fredrik’s story, it is
the police who are suddenly forced to flee, and the “criminals” are the ones who
chase them. It is a good story—as there is a point to tell—because it is the opposite
of what one would expect. So far I have used narrative and story interchangeably (fol-
lowing Polletta et al. 2011). However, some argue that there is a difference between a
narrative and a story; narrative is structure with temporality and causality, while stories
break with the expected (De Fina, 2003). There is nothing more boring than a story
everyone has heard before, without breaks or unexpected events. However, if there is
something sensational about the story, audiences can hear it again and again.
Humorous stories often leave listeners wondering whether they should laugh or cry
(Tutenges & Rod, 2009). Fredrik’s story, for example, is funny, and everyone laughs
along the way, but he still ends up with the conclusion: “It’s so stupid, it’s so stupid,
really. Thinking back to it in sober state. How stupid do you have to be?” Such a con-
clusion reflects both the context of storytelling and how much the narrator has
matured. This is typical of life stories in research interviews, where conclusions and
evaluations are drawn in the direction of the current position of the storyteller and
 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION 225

what the interviewer and the interviewee can agree on. Such conclusions or codas
makes it possible to tell an entertaining story without it being linked to an assessment
of who the narrator is today.

Stories are identity- and boundary work

Stories are fundamental to how people understand themselves and are seen by
others. Psychologist Dan P. McAdams (1993) argues that we get to know people
through the stories they tell. Through stories, we say something about who we are
and who we want to be. We present our identity, or at least our desired identity.
Among young partygoers, drinking stories are a popular way of presenting themselves
(Tutenges & Rod, 2009). Stories of violence are similarly popular in street culture and
among many inmates. They were central to Fredrik’s self-understanding and an inte-
gral part of his life story. We have already discussed how the stories of violence pre-
sented him as someone who should be feared, and thus treated with respect. But the
stories also portrayed Fredrik in other, alternative ways.
The story about the police who came abseiling through the window ended like this:
The only person they meet inside that room is almost the kindest man in the world. I was
actually sitting on the couch when they came in, with my hands behind my back,
because I knew they were going to handcuff me. So I just sat there like that when they
came into the living room. I had two friends visiting. And the girl sitting there, she
suddenly shouted: The police are here! The police are here! And then she gets up with
her hands on her head: They’ve got guns! She shouts. Then I say: Just sit down and relax.

Here, we see a different Fredrik. It is not the aggressive one who is so “crazy” that
he even attacks the police, but a more calm, stoic Fredrik who remains composed
when others panic. The story shows that he is able to master potentially violent and
dramatic situations. The violence that is sometimes triggered is therefore not done in
anger, but is more a result of an assessment of what the situation requires. As part of
establishing different identities, Fredrik is able to take on several different roles in his
stories. He is the helper, the avenger, the protector, and in the story below, he also
takes on the role of the calm negotiator.
In narratives, identities are often constructed through symbolic boundary work
(Copes, 2016; Lamont & Molnar, 2002); meaning that a story often says something
about who someone is by saying who they are not. In the story above, Fredrik is the
opposite of the hysterical woman. His calmness must be seen in relation to her panic.
In the main story of this paper, Kjetil represents everything Fredrik is not. In addition
to being a pedophile, he is unable to defend himself when confronted and unable to
do anything about it afterwards. He must hire help, and even when he does so, he
fails. In sum, he is without honor in a street culture where it is crucial to be able to
stand up for oneself.

Stories process and integrate

Stories also express emotions, while enabling a search for a greater meaning in life
and integrating lives through reducing complexity. Several of Fredrik’s stories can be
interpreted as attempts to process and integrate important events in his life.
226 S. SANDBERG

Experiences of violence are something most people must process through stories,
they are dramatic and sometimes traumatic experiences closely related to self-under-
standing and identity. Fredrik’s stories can be seen as being connected in a longer life
story that is conveyed in the interview. Life stories link events that have occurred over
a long period of time, and give them meaning (McAdams, 1993). For example, towards
the end of the interview, it became clear how Fredrik was constantly working on his
own story. Towards the end, he summarized insights from life and his views upon
the future:
What scares me about all of this, is that things are getting so nasty. I’m starting to get
scared for those growing up today, and that they’ll maybe get mixed up in all this stuff
… It’s become so nasty. There’s loads of new drugs, that GHB stuff, all sorts of things. So
much rape because of that GHB stuff, people wake up and don’t know what’s happened
or anything. Things won’t get any better, put it that way.

All stories reflect the narrator’s identity, but life stories do this in a more fundamen-
tal way. It is the closest we get to a self or a desired identity. In life stories, individual
episodes are interpreted in light of other episodes in life. Through storytelling, chaotic
and diverse lives are integrated, and episodes that need explanation are put into con-
text. For example, the last part of the interview integrates Fredrik’s previous subcul-
tural narratives into new reform narratives (Presser, 2008). Both individual stories and
life stories integrate and process, creating new meaning. Arguably, this is the most
important work that stories do.

Conclusion
In this paper, I have emphasized concrete analysis and shown how stories can be ana-
lyzed in four different ways, depending on whether we look at what is told, how it is
done, who is narrating and where it is done, and what voices we can hear in a story.
Narrative analysis is particularly relevant in criminology because criminal acts are
“storyable.” Crime breaks with the conventional and hence invites storytelling. They
are often dramatic events that need to be explained, and traumatic events that need
to be processed. Stories are good at doing this. For example, the article has shown
how stories entertain, draw boundaries, create and sustain identity, process experien-
ces, and integrate lives.
Stories instigate actions, such as crime, by making them accessible—one had not
thought about the possibility—and attractive by linking them to a particular culture,
identity, or life story (Presser & Sandberg, 2015a). School massacres, serial killings and
terrorism are exceptional events that have become stories and thus motivated new
acts. More stable forms of crime such as gang-related violence and the use of illegal
drugs are continuously sustained through stories, in contexts were this behavior is
common. We often see that harmful actions are stagings of familiar stories. As Isaac
Babel points out: “Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story.”
Narrative analysis in criminology can also look at which stories keep people away
from crime.
In contrast to sociolinguistics and narratology, narrative analysis in criminology is not
concerned with the description and systematization of stories for their own part. Still, an
 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION 227

in-depth understanding of a society or subculture depends on an overview and under-

standing the stories at play. In most societies, crime plays a very special role in such sto-
ries. It is used to draw boundaries between “us” and “them,” to convey values and norms,
but also to entertain and fascinate. Cultures and subcultures are created, sustained, and
disintegrate through stories. Narrative analysis in criminology can both look at society’s
stories of crime and the stories of “criminals.” Usually, these are closely related.
Narrative analysis has many advantages. Stories and languages are fundamentally
social, but are told by people. Therefore, narrative analysis is both a study of a person
acting in a given situation and a study of environments, cultures, and groups. It con-
nects individuals to groups and anchors culture in something concrete that can be
studied (Presser, 2009). There are also some analytical advantages. Crime is rarely
observed directly in research. This also applies to register data that reflects system nar-
ratives and self-reported survey data. Narrative analysis provides researchers with a
method that is specifically adapted to the data they possess. Narrative methods are
not a technique one can learn that does the analysis for the researcher, but it provides
tools and concepts that may be useful.
Narrative analysis also has its limitations. Traditionally, it has been more concerned
with stories and the independent power of discourse than “objective” variables and
socioeconomic structural conditions such as social class and inequality. Perhaps this is
because tradition grows out of linguistics and symbolic interactionism. Nothing stands
in the way of describing stories as being central to the formation and sustenance of
capitalism, patriarchy or fundamental to ethnic or class-based oppression (Fleetwood,
2014, Sandberg and Pedersen 2009). Critical discourse analysis does this (Fairclough,
1995). Nevertheless, discourse analysis and narrative analysis will always be oriented
towards language. For researchers who are primarily interested in other aspects of
reality, other methods and forms of analysis may be better. It is still important that
classes, ethnicity, and socioeconomic structures are continuously created and sus-
tained in narrative processes, and researchers are also limited by language when they
write about them. Therefore, narrative theory and analysis can contribute to reflections
on the nature and boundaries of research and empirical data. The perspective is also
crucial to understand storytelling, and how it creates, uphold and reproduce society.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID
Sveinung Sandberg http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1639-6164

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