Been a Heavy Life: Stories of Violent MenIn this groundbreaking work, Lois Presser investigates the life stories of men who have perpetrated violence. She applies insights from across the academy to in-depth interviews with men who shared their accounts of how they became the people we most fear--those who rape, murder, assault, and rob, often repeatedly. Been a Heavy Life provides the discipline of criminology with two crucial frameworks: one for critically evaluating the construction of offenders’ own stories, and one for grasping the cultural meta-narratives that legitimize violence. For social scientists generally, this book offers a vivid demonstration of just how dynamic and contingent self-narratives are. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Offender Identities Offender Narratives | 15 |
3 Thinking about Research Effects | 31 |
4 Research Methods When Research Is Being Researched | 46 |
Return of the Good Self | 62 |
Never a Bad Self | 71 |
Creative Integration | 97 |
8 Tales of Heroic Struggle | 106 |
9 The Situated Construction of Narratives | 123 |
10 The Power of Stories | 145 |
Notes | 157 |
| 161 | |
| 179 | |
back cover | 187 |
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