Sveinung Sandberg

• PhD
• Professor at University of Oslo

Studies have shown that people who commit criminalized acts draw upon different narrative roles. This study highlights the narrative role of the professional and explores how such identities and self-understandings influence risk assessment and desistance. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 54 prisoners from Argentina, Chile, Hondura...

Families are integral to the organization of Mexican society. In a context where the State is absent or weak, the family serves as a social safety net and is pivotal for everything from housing to paid work. As the structural backbone of Mexican society, the family exists within a widespread cultural representation denominated as familism, often ch...

In very different societal contexts, parenthood has been identified as a critical turning point in life course trajectories. In this qualitative study, we explore parenthood as a turning point for 40 young women and 40 young men in prisons across Latin America. We study the impact of parenthood on criminal trajectories, identify gender differences,...

En lang tradisjon av forskere har belyst dealing i gatekulturer. Miljøene som har blitt belyst, har vært sosialt marginale, og selgerne har ikke hatt tilgang på noe særlig kulturell eller økonomisk kapital, som ellers er vanlige kilder til selvrespekt. Men i Oslo er både bruken av illegale rusmidler og omfanget av dealingen høyere i de velstående o...

El proyecto Crimen en América Latina (CRIMLA) busca generar una amplia base de datos para analizar los fenómenos de crimen y castigo en el continente. Un equipo de más de 40 investigadoras e investigadores entrevistaron repetidamente a 420 personas privadas de la libertad en cárceles Latinoamericanas. Las entrevistas, realizadas en tres sesiones po...

Most methodological discussions about the pros and cons of repeat interviews fall within qualitative longitudinal literature and are premised on project designs with relatively long intervals between encounters. Less attention has been paid to the practice and ethics of repeat interviewing as a stand-alone method, that does not follow participants...

While studies of femicide perpetrators have focused on background factors, such as criminal history and mental health conditions, little attention has been paid to their individual experiences. Perpetrators emotions and sense-making have often been overlooked and even dismissed. With a micro-sociological approach to violence, we identify the narrat...

This book demonstrates how culture matters for the understanding of cannabis use. It stems from the growing body of research on how users manoeuvre stigmatisation and celebrate the subcultural status of cannabis amid rapid transformation of the substance and its societal reception. The volume presents international studies that challenge the normal...

Mange etniske minoriteter opplever rasisme som et stort problem i Norge. Dette gjelder spesielt mikroaggresjoner basert på kulturelle forestillinger om at «det norske» er overlegent. I denne artikkelen beskriver vi ulike former for rasisme og legger vekt på hvordan disse ble motarbeidet gjennom det vi kaller hverdagsmotstand. Studien er basert på 4...

Life-stories emerge from a wide variety of facts and events in individual lives and weave a selected few of these together to make meaning in the present. They are crucial for constructing identity and influence action by establishing worldviews and a persona that narrators will seek to confirm. In this study we describe three main themes in the li...

For over a decade, jihadi terrorism in Europe, and the recruitment of Europeans to fight for ISIS in Syria, have increasingly involved marginalized youths from a social context of street culture, illegal drug use and crime. Existing theoretical models of the crime-terrorism nexus and radicalization arguably do not sufficiently explain the fluid and...

We study the emergence of new forms of law violations in Latin America during the coronavirus pandemic. Based on data from online news articles, we construct a typology of “new” crimes: (1) hate or fear crimes against health workers and hospitals; (2) illegal denials of public mobility out of fear of infection; (3) looting and other traditional cri...

Music is ubiquitous in contemporary societies, and criminologists are paying increasing attention to it, asserting that it takes antisocial, prosocial and anti-establishment forms regarding criminality. Established approaches provide vital ways to understand the relationship of music and crime, but criminologists have yet to theorise the fluidity o...

This study aims to understand why people agree to participate in qualitative research. While some studies have emphasized the motivation to participate in research, the nuances and underlying stories that favor participation have not yet been examined. Using data from repeated biographical open-ended interviews with men and women convicted of viole...

Before being locked up, incarcerated women are more marginalized, have higher rates of mental illness and substance misuse, and have more often experienced physical or sexual victimization than incarcerated men. Women experience prison differently. However, much of what we know about women’s experiences comes from research in the United States and...

Drug dealing is widespread in all sectors of society but is still studied predominantly in disadvantaged urban areas. We identify three main pathways to drug dealing based on qualitative interviews with middle- and upper-class individuals in Oslo, Norway. First, problems in the family and school and a lack of belonging in affluent neighbourhoods in...

Many of the Western assumptions about how youth define cannabis are inaccurate or erroneous for cultural contexts where drugs are highly tabooed; coming of age is characterized by drastically gendered trajectories, and families mediate the potential stigma of drug use extensively. With increasingly interconnected and multicultural societies, any ap...

Racial discrimination takes many forms and so does opposition to it. In contrast to the dominant emphasis on institutional or state efforts to counter racism, we examine how members of racially minoritized groups resist racism in their everyday lives. Drawing on forty-one qualitative interviews with young, mainly Black, people in Norway, we identif...

Three groups of dealers Most of the dealers we met had roots in sub-Saharan Africa, but some came from the Arab world. They ranged in age from 17 to 30, with most of them in their twenties. To the casual passer-by, there was little to distinguish one cannabis dealer from another. In reality, however, the differences among them were quite striking,...

First-time selling at The River Selling cannabis is illegal, and its illegality shapes the transactions at The River. In quick succession, an offer must be made, the goods displayed and sampled, a price agreed upon, and money and commodity exchanged. Throughout this process, the participants risk being seen by the police. To survive in the longer t...

i>Street Capital is aimed at postgraduates and academics in criminology, race and ethnicity, sociology, social theory and methodology. It will also be of interest to a wider social science audience, particularly those interested in using Bourdieu as a theoretical model.

I know how the system works We met up with Johs one autumn afternoon. He was one of the dealers with a long criminal record. It was raining, and we had already been at The River for several hours. Two dealers suddenly crossed the road, obviously eyeing an opportunity to make a sale. We said “no thanks” but told them about the book we were writing....

A street drug market The River is probably the largest street cannabis market in the Nordic countries. Day and night, all through the year, a handful of young men sell cannabis – in all kinds of weather. The market shares many parallels with the 7-Eleven in the legal economy: the prices are high, the quality is low and customers therefore tend to b...

Violent drug markets We were sitting one night in a pub with John, one of the cannabis dealers. He had just completed his last trade for the day. We drank coffee, warmed ourselves and talked about how to avoid the perils of drug debt. John saw something through the window and remarked drily: John: ‘They’re gonna fight. D’you see?’ Interviewer: ‘How...

Under the bridge It was a bitterly cold winter's night. We had been walking our planned route along The River but had finished earlier than expected. Not many people were around, and we were cold, tired and looking forward to a dry room and something hot to drink. Towards the end of the round, we spotted the light of a fire under a bridge. We knew...

Theoretical framework The most important concept introduced in this book is ‘street capital’. Street capital is inspired by Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist. Street capital is knowledge, skills and objects that are given value in a street culture. The concept is used to capture the ‘cultural capital’ of a violent street culture. We have alre...

Drug competence Most of the young men at The River grew up in Norway and started smoking cannabis with their peers in their early teens. The initiation into cannabis use was a rite of passage; it signified the end of childhood. It was a gateway to thrills and adventures and meant a gradual incorporation into new networks. Cannabis use became a key...

The River The river Akerselva divides Oslo – the capital of Norway – into its eastern, working-class parts, and the more prosperous west. From a distance, the area seems peaceful and cultivated. There are green parks and old brick houses – some of them former factories, remnants from the early industrial period. However, the area has a long history...

Symbolic boundaries are used for establishing narrative identities and have critical impact on behavior and interpersonal interactions. Using data from a photo-ethnography of people who use methamphetamine in Alabama we show how women use stories and images to draw symbolic boundaries between themselves and others. These boundaries made sense of th...

In the spring of 2020, the Black Lives Matter protests shook the Western world. Spreading from the USA, demonstrations diffused globally, especially to Europe, calling out racism in its different forms. Emotions ran high and were pivotal in igniting protests. The role of emotion in social movements has received renewed scholarly attention during th...

Research on the new crime-terror nexus has focused on examining the confluences of criminal and jihadist milieus. This article contributes to this research, using insights from criminological theory and analyzing data from interviews with Muslim men who have been exposed to jihadism and have a background in street life and crime. We propose that th...

This study examines early intervention against individual radicalization. The data originate from interviews with young Muslims in Norway who had experienced interventions related to their own radicalization, or engaged in or witnessed interventions directed at a radicalized peer or relative. We find that informal interventions by family and friend...

Crime is both storyable and storied, and narrative analysis is thus essential for criminologists. In this article I present four different ways of doing narrative analysis: thematic, structural, performative and dialogical. These forms of analysis have different research questions and are associated with very different research traditions. Narrativ...

Many studies have examined why individuals with a background in street life and crime are drawn toward extremism. This paper examines why most people with this background reject extremism. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Oslo, we found that Muslims involved in street culture were generally opposed to jihadism because they perceived jihadists as...

Research on crime tends to emphasize clear-cut stories, either in support of or rejecting crime. Stories, however, are often ambiguous, mainly when they concern complex and multi-faceted phenomena. Based on qualitative interviews with Italian students, we explore how organized crime is viewed and evaluated by non-offenders. We found six widespread...

Mexico may well be the largest country in the world to legalize cannabis. Nevertheless, it is culturally conservative and a certain discrepancy exists between liberalization reforms and popular opinion regarding cannabis. Based on qualitative interviews with 100 cannabis users in Mexico City, we describe the gendered differences in perceptions and...

The Oxford Handbook of Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice provides critical and current reviews of key research topics, issues, and debates that crime ethnographers have been grappling with for over a century. Despite its long and distinguished history in the social sciences, ethnographies in criminology are still relatively rare. Over the...

This chapter outlines how criminological researchers can attend to narrative as part of their ethnographic practice. Attention to the narrativity of speech, conversations, and texts pertaining to both individuals and groups has the potential to enrich ethnographic research on crime, criminal justice, and victims/survivors. It accentuates that stori...

Criminology have long celebrated the lone hero researcher. Doing and writing up research in solitude has been the key to academic success and institutional promotions. However, the social sciences in general have increasingly moved towards more collaborative ways of doing research, and co-authorship has become more common. In this study, we summari...

Research has revealed widespread anti-Muslim sentiment in Norway. Little knowledge exists, however, on the types of anti-Muslim hostility that Muslims experience and how they react to it. Based on interviews with 90 young Norwegian Muslims, we describe widespread forms of anti-Muslim hostility and discuss the strategies that Muslims use in response...

Recent scholarship has explored the potential of subcultural theory for understanding the convergence of Western street and jihadi subcultures. The role of jihadi rap in this radical hybrid culture, however, is yet uncharted. We argue that subcultural analysis allows an understanding of the aesthetic fascination of jihadism, sometimes referred to a...

Research has shown widespread discrimination and hostility toward Muslims in Western countries. There is less knowledge of how Muslims resist, oppose, or challenge such behaviour. Based on in-depth interviews with 90 young Muslims in Norway, this study explores responses to anti-Muslim hostility. We describe a repertoire of everyday resistance: tal...

Background We study the significance of stories about bad trips among users of psychedelics. Drawing on narrative theory, we describe the characteristics of such stories and explore the work they do. Methods In-depth qualitative interviews with 50 Norwegian users of psychedelics. Results Almost all participants had frightening experiences when us...

The epidemic psychology of pandemics creates an atmosphere of panic and fear that can expedite new laws and facilitate criminogenic narrative arousal. Using narrative criminology, we discuss crimes that emerged from pandemic narratives in the early phases of the disease in Mexico. We show how pandemic master narratives have unexpected criminogenic...

Facing the Covid-19 pandemic, prisons in Mexico City prohibited visits. This sparked clearly gendered protests: male prison inmates complained that the restrictions left them without resources to deal with prison shortages, while women complained that it prevented them from sending resources to their families. Based on data from life story intervie...

This study examines the role of fatherhood for incarcerated men in Mexico, based on repeated life-story interviews with twelve men. We distinguish between their descriptions of fatherhood in the past and present and how they imagine the future, and explore how fathers describe their relationship with their children. The incarcerated men idealize th...

This study examines the mothering practices and identities of incarcerated women in Mexico. Data gathered from repeated life-story interviews with 12 women, were analyzed to describe mothering practices in the different phases of incarcerated women’s’ lives. We argue that knowledge of the Latin American context is crucial to understand their experi...

Powerful narratives that invoke religious concepts—jihad, Sharia, shahid, Caliphate, kuffar, and al-Qiyāmah—have accompanied jihadi violence but also inspired robust counter-narratives from Muslims. Taking a narrative criminological approach, we explore the rejection of religious extremism that emerges in everyday interactions in a religious commun...

Sex work is often interpreted through master narratives that see women as victimized and subjected to stigmas and negative attitudes. This paper offers an insight into narratives that challenge or can be seen as an alternative to these narratives. Data are from a sample of 15 interviews with women who show an interest in sex work, conducted in a ne...

The backgrounds and modus operandi of more recent jihadi terrorists tend to share factors and characteristics more typically associated with non-political violence such as mass-killings and gang violence. Their attacks, moreover, seem to have been precipitated not by the direct instructions of a formal hierarchy but by the encouragement of propagan...

This paper explores alcohol-related sexual storytelling. In a qualitative study of more than 100 male participants in the night-time economy in Norway, many told animated and cheerful stories laced with erotic excitement. However, a minority of men also told sex stories characterised by aggressive, belittling and degrading language. We propose that...

Fights are widespread in society, but for most people it happens once or twice and is not part of a consistent pattern or lifestyle. Using a narrative criminological framework, we study the stories of violence among people who otherwise seldom engage in violent behaviour. The young Norwegians we interviewed, emphasized that their fights emerged as...

This study investigates paternal identities among men who are involved in the illegal drug economy in Norway. Using data from life-history interviews, we identified two paternal identities relating to the role fatherhood played in their lives and crimes: struggling fathers and absent fathers. Our analysis demonstrates the structural constraints of...

Drinking stories feature widely in Western societies. Many people eagerly share their stories in the aftermath of drinking events. These stories are also common in books, movies, music and the media. Based on qualitative interviews with 104 young Norwegian heavy episodic drinkers, the article seeks to establish drinking stories as a distinct narrat...

Based on interviews with 104 young partygoers, this article examines sexual assaults that occur in the context of festive events. Focus is on how individuals describe their sexual victimization. Three experiential characteristics stand out in the victims’ accounts. First, the assaults are described as being characterized by an altered state of cons...

Narrative criminology is a theoretical paradigm rooted in a view of stories as influencing harmful actions and arrangements. Narrative criminologists explore the storied bases of a variety of harms and also consider the narratives with which actors resist patterns of harm. We submit that narrative criminology is an apt and powerful framework for re...

Following recent terrorist attacks in the US and Europe, Western Muslims have been criticized for not taking a firm stand against radical Islam and extremist organizations. Drawing on insights from narrative criminology, we challenge such assertions and reveal Muslims' narrative mobilization against violent jihadism. Based on 90 qualitative intervi...

A background in ‘ordinary’ crime, violence and drug use seems to characterize many European individuals recently involved in ISIS-related jihadi violence. With its long tradition of studying marginalized populations and street culture, criminology offers novel ways to explore these developments theoretically. In this article, we demonstrate how Pie...

Prices in illegal drug markets are difficult to predict. Based on qualitative interviews with 68 incarcerated drug dealers in Norway, we explore dealers’ perspectives on fair prices and the processes that influence their pricing decisions. Synthesized through economic sociology, we draw on perspectives from traditions as different as behavioral eco...

De som kommer til orde i denne boka er den moderate majoriteten av unge norske muslimer. De reflekterer om deres personlige tro, religiøse praksis, gruppetilhørigheter og særlig om synet de har på ekstreme bevegelser. Slik får vi en rikere forståelse av den motstanden mot jihadisme som er vanlig blant norske muslimer - omfanget, styrken, grunnene...

Humor is essential to social life, but it is often overlooked in the study of crime and other social problems. We introduce and make use of humor theory, emphasizing the theories of superiority and relief. Based on interviews with incarcerated men, we demonstrate how humor is used to criticize authorities, for self-aggrandizement, and to alleviate...

The Islamic State (IS) has become notorious for violent, brutal actions and the presentation of these actions in social and mainstream media. Excessive violence creates a spectacle for the news media. However, IS propaganda also emphasizes its role in state building and its engagement in social and welfare work. This twofold propaganda enables the...

The new drug markets emerging on the dark net have reduced earlier drug market risk factors such as visibility and violence. This study uses economic sociology and transaction cost economics to broaden the present understanding of cryptomarkets. Results focus on three coordination problems characterizing illegal markets and how they are alleviated...

Previous research has critiqued conventional anger management programmes for disregarding participants’ values honouring masculine performances of being tough, risk-seeking and capable of violence. Conversely, the Danish programme subjected to case study in this paper, represents a liberal approach that endorses such values while still encouraging...

This study examines the narratives that people who are deeply interested in school shootings tell about school shootings and their interest in the subject. Data come from 22 qualitative online interviews with individuals from 12 countries across the world, and the study is based on a framework of narrative criminology. We find that the theme of bul...

Background: In this study, we use assemblage theory to investigate the link between alcohol use and one-night stands. Methods: The data come from qualitative interviews conducted with 104 young participants in the night-time economy. Results: We show that: (i) alcohol-fuelled sexual explorations (e.g. erotic fantasizing, flirting and sex) are...

Norway has a drinking culture characterised by low per capita consumption, heavy drinking on a few occasions, and restrictive alcohol policies. Attitudes towards alcohol have traditionally been ambivalent, but recently they have become more “continental” among adults, and the temperance movement has lost ground. This qualitative study explores perc...

This paper examines the evolving social identities of young adolescents in regard to alcohol and drinking culture in Norway. Detailed analysis of 29 focus group interviews and 32 individual interviews with 12–13-year-olds reveal a thorough negative attitude towards alcohol, especially when enjoyed by young people. Young adolescents found young peop...

In this article, we examine the symbolic meaning, perceived risks and cultural framing of heroin and opiate maintenance treatment drugs among legal and illegal drug users in Norway. We use data from three groups of drug users, binge-drinkers in the night-time economy, cannabis users and heavy-end illegal drug users. We interviewed 207 drug users of...

The work of Bourdieu has increasingly gained interest in criminology. His theoretical framework is rich and arguably the most sophisticated approach to social inequality and difference in sociology. It has however, been criticized for bias towards the structural aspects of social life, and for leaving little space for the constitutive, and creative...

New technologies have changed the way we produce and relate to images. Three socio-cultural trends and associated offender motivations stand out when understanding why offenders record their crimes. First, some pictures and films are inspired by the rise of amateur and rape pornography and recorded to produce and enjoy such images. Second, recordin...

Research on partying and nightlife often emphasizes commercial control while overlooking participants' creativity and agency. Due to their age, appearance and transgressive partying, participants in the Norwegian high school graduation celebration have limited access to bars and pubs in the ordinary night-time economy. To create alternative party s...

Stories make harmful actions both plausible and compelling. They provide a lot of what qualitative researchers consider data, but as a discursive form have received only scant attention in criminology. From interviews with imprisoned drug dealers in Norway, this paper identifies three forms of narrative: first, life-stories summarizing and reducing...

Introduction and aims: In 'binge drinking' cultures, there is a strong association between alcohol consumption and violence. At the same time, several studies suggest that this link is cultural and contextual. We explore the role of alcohol in incidents of violence in nightlife settings. Design and methods: We used qualitative interviews with 10...

This study examines how creditors in illicit drug markets manage debtors’ inability to repay “fronted” drugs. Based on qualitative interviews with 40 incarcerated drug dealers in Norway, we explore four outcomes of unpaid drug debts. Two modes of governance dominated the credit reciprocation processes: Cooperative governance included strategies of...

The methodological orientation of criminology and criminal justice journals is overwhelmingly quantitative. In fact, only between 5 and 10% of articles published in CCJ journals rely on qualitative methods. Fortunately, this trend seems to be changing within the discipline, which will encourage more scholars to seek to publish qualitative research....

On 22 July 2011 two consecutive terrorist attacks took place in Norway.1 The first was the detonation of a car bomb in Oslo in the vicinity of government buildings and the office of the Prime Minister. The second attack took place less than two hours later at a summer camp organised for the youth division of the ruling Norwegian Labour Party. Eight...