Stories of injustice: Towards a narrative victimology
| Author | Pauline G.M. Aarten,Eva Mulder,Antony Pemberton |
| Published date | 01 July 2019 |
| Date | 01 July 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1477370818770843 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370818770843
European Journal of Criminology
2019, Vol. 16(4) 391 –412
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370818770843
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Stories of injustice: Towards
a narrative victimology
Antony Pemberton, Eva Mulder
and Pauline G.M. Aarten
INTERVICT, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Abstract
Narrative has become a popular approach in a number of disciplines, including, recently, that of
criminology. In this paper, we contend that the study of crime and harm would benefit from a
complementary yet distinct perspective of narrative victimology. We discuss key characteristics
that illuminate victimological experiences as inherently moral, and hence best addressed through
a narrative approach. These include the attribution of intent, the experience of having harm done
to oneself, and the narrative implications of being victimized, culminating in the root metaphor
of victimization as a historical event. We argue why the narrative approach is particularly suited
to the study victimization and its aftermath, including the interaction with justice processes and
social surroundings. Suggestions for future research are included.
Keywords
Criminal justice, narrative, narrative criminology, trauma, victimology
Introduction
‘The narrative turn’ in the social sciences has been under way for well over 40 years now.
For the better part of the 20th century, social scientists – even those influenced by sym-
bolic interactionism or social constructionism – eschewed narrative as a perceived handi-
cap in the pursuit of scientific credibility (Ewick and Silbey, 1995). However, following
landmark works in history (White, 1973), philosophy (MacIntyre, 1982; Ricoeur, 1984;
Taylor, 1989) and psychology (Bruner, 1986; Sarbin, 1986), narrative theories, analyses
and methods rapidly spread across the social sciences.
As Sandberg and Ugelvik’s (2016) short historical overview reveals, the discipline of
narrative criminology is a relatively late addition to narrative social science. Although in
Corresponding author:
Antony Pemberton, INTERVICT, Tilburg University, PO Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Email: a.pemberton@uvt.nl
770843EUC0010.1177/1477370818770843European Journal of CriminologyPemberton et al.
research-article2018
Article
392 European Journal of Criminology 16(4)
hindsight certain works, for instance Sykes and Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization (1957)
and, more clearly and recently, Jack Katz’s Seductions of Crime (1988) and Shadd Maruna’s
Making Good (2001), can also be viewed as such, it was only in 2009 that Lois Presser
coined the term ‘narrative criminology’ (Presser, 2009), and work in this field started to
flourish. As Presser herself argues, a reason that criminology was so late to the party was the
sense of distrust of the factual accuracy of any story the offender would provide:
I venture that criminology is especially ‘wedded to facticity’ given that our ultimate referent is
the wily offender. In the criminal justice system offenders face demonstrable institutional
incentives for portraying themselves in particular, not-necessarily-true ways. Offenders’ stories
are taken as devices meant for manipulation. A perspective tied too closely to their stories
would likely seem suspect. (2016: 146)
However, the realization that narratives are important whether or not they are true or false
– in what they do, not (necessarily) what they reveal – has been pivotal in staking out this
sub-discipline. What makes narrative, in fact, particularly relevant to criminology is its
moral load. To quote Presser again: ‘For most scholars, a narrative is a temporally ordered,
morally suggestive statement about events and/or actions in the life of one or more protago-
nists. Both temporality and moral meaning are essential’ (2016: 138). Narrative is particu-
larly relevant to the study of how people understand their own experience and actions in
relation to their identity and the wider collectives to which they belong. One reason to favour
the narrative approach in criminology is its focus on this acculturated self, with Presser not-
ing that its relative absence is also due to criminology’s reluctance to examine crimes and
violence committed at a larger scale: war, crimes against humanity and genocide.
It might have had a slow start, but narrative criminology is rapidly evolving into a
full-fledged sub-discipline (Presser and Sandberg, 2015; Sandberg and Ugelvik, 2016).
A variety of different forms of crime – from drug-dealing, to repeat offending, to mass
murder and terrorism – have been studied. Individual narratives of crime have been posi-
tioned within a wider set of cultural and/or community narratives. Additionally, the nar-
ratives of those engaging with offenders, for instance in law enforcement or treatment
and probation, have been considered. The relevance of these studies reaches beyond the
direct areas of investigation. As Presser (2013) develops in her book Why We Harm, the
study of narrative criminology can further our insights into what kind of stories foster or
prevent harming others, or how stories can justify violence, and even make others’ suf-
fering seem inevitable. Finally, Presser argues that narrative criminology has an impor-
tant and even unique contribution to make to the field of narrative enquiry, given that
narrative criminology deals with stories that literally concern life or death.
In this paper, we intend to demonstrate that the study of crime and harm would greatly
benefit from a similar but distinct perspective to narrative criminology, namely that of
narrative victimology.
From narrative criminology to a narrative victimology
Much of the assessment of the (lack of) development of narrative criminology also applies
to victimology, and the importance of narrative approaches to the study of victimization
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