Narratology, applied: The case of narrative criminology

Presser, Lois

doi:10.1075/ni.22060.pre

Article published In: Applied Narratology
Edited by Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar, Laura Karttunen and Anna Ovaska
[Narrative Inquiry 34:2] 2024
► pp. 364–386

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Narratology, applied

The case of narrative criminology

Lois Presser | University of Tennessee

Published online: 2 April 2024

https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.22060.pre

Abstract

Criminology is foundationally an applied discipline, or one whose knowledge seeks to shape some non-academic practice. Narratives – particularly the narratives of parties to ‘crime’ – are essential to criminology, but criminologists have hardly engaged with narratology. This paper tracks the progression from traditional narrative research involving harm agents and criminalized persons to a relatively new narrative criminology that is attentive to narrative forms and strategies inasmuch as it considers these as shaping harm. In addition, the paper forecasts narrative criminology’s fruitful engagement in concepts from rhetorical narratology. Interviews with men who perpetrated violence and insights from restorative justice encounters are used to demonstrate the potential value of rhetorical narratological concepts to narrative criminology and to interventions informed by narrative criminology.

Keywords: narrative criminology, applied discipline, narratology, rhetorical narratology, deficient narration, unreliable narration

Article outline

Introduction
Criminology as an applied field
Criminology and stories
- Stories tell about conditions for crime
- The truth value of stories
Narrative criminology and its inspirations
- Engaging with rhetorical narratology
Deficient narration in stories of men held to account
- Implied authorship and pockets of reliability: Some revisions
- Underreporting
- Deficient narration impacting self and others
Conclusion
Notes
References

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