The origins of “narrative criminology” are framed within the so-called “narrative wave” in the field of human sciences; but a deeper look into the history of the discipline allows us to discover that the interest in the narrations of crime dates back to the dawn of criminology and has influenced the development of the science ever since the time of Lombroso. Moreover, it has imbued the various traditions that have characterized criminology itself.

In developing its distinctive peculiar approach, narrative criminology has focused on narratives as motivators and producers of crime (subverting the commonspread opinion), discovering that crime narratives often do not appear centered around a unitary conception of a Self, but multi-dimensional, fluctuating, fragmented and disarticulated. Moreover, narratives depend on the situation of the narrator, his/her positioning in the social structure and determination by the cultural or social fields; and sometimes the narrator is pushed by forces which he/she does know nothing about.

Crime narratives are full of references to other texts, and their interpretation is complex. Sometimes they are elliptical, concise, short, referring to what everyone knows and must be simply hinted at: they sign the emergence from the not-said, the not-knowable, anticipating an act which doesn’t frequently find words, or taking its place. It follows that, since its inception, narrative criminology has revealed itself to be very interested in the analysis of singular cases (“one is enough”).

Narrative criminology, in sum, positions itself in a space previously not occupied, and connects with other new exciting developments in the field, contributing to the study of the relation between individual and social narratives on one side, and among not easily tellable individual, structural, social and cultural dimensions on the other.

The present symposium will focus on the interrelations, intersections and counterpositions between reality and unreality, fantasy, truth, lies, imagination, narrative, literature, on the one side, and crime and criminal justice on the other.

Sites of interest

Narrative Criminology Research Network (University of Oslo, Norway)

European Society of Criminology Narrative Criminology Research Group

Società Italiana di Criminologia