Life stories and life-course trajectories to crime in Latin America

• In Event: Narrative Criminology 2: Gangs, organized crime and prisons

Abstract

Self-narratives and life stories are crucial for understanding life-course trajectories that lead to crime. This presentation is based on the CRIMLA-project (Crime in Latin America) and emphasizes the storytelling dimension of the project. Through repeat life-story interviews with 400 individuals in prison across seven countries, we explore the relationship between life stories and criminal life-course trajectories in this region. Life-course criminology has rarely acknowledged or incorporated insights from social constructivist perspectives, despite including life-history narratives in some seminal works. Inspired by narrative criminology and by emphasizing how life stories are both shaped by and shape life courses, this approach to life-course criminology adds a much-needed, integrated constructivist perspective. On one hand, our emphasis is on the narrative agency of participants, exploring the many opportunities they have to narrate their lives in different ways and alter them accordingly. On the other hand, and just as importantly, we emphasize the structural aspects, highlighting how individuals are not only constrained by material circumstances and institutional logics but also live their lives amidst prevailing cultural discourses and narratives, many of which emerge from powerful cultural, religious, and penal institutions. Life storytelling thus offers opportunities and reflects constraints, while combining elements of both fact and fiction–e.g. art and magical beliefs–as narratives eventually becomes reality. The stories people tell about themselves are subtly intertwined with their actions, and life stories shape life courses in the same way that life courses shape life stories. To understand the complex dynamics of life-course trajectories leading to crime, we argue that life-course criminology needs to integrate insights from life-story research and narrative criminology.

Author

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