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Narrative Identity In Canadian Criminology

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This paper explores the implication of narrative in the context of Canadian criminology and explores its influence on criminality and criminal desistance. In the research of both humanitarian and social sciences, narrative criminology emerged nearly a decade after most other fields had adopted the concept of narrative identity into their research and social perspective. The examination of society and identity in the perpetuation and changes in our social moral codes that define deviance, and by extension, crime through determining normalcy. Narrative identity is the theory that identity develops from the contextualization and internalization of external culture by the individual. Through this, the individual understands their place in the narrative …show more content…

Understanding the perception of mainstream Canadian society is central in the pursuit of understanding the Western criminal narrative. The central feature of Western society is the emphasis on capitalist social values: efficiency, and aesthetic utilitarianism. These inform the trajectory of the social narrative in terms of our communal goals as a "society", how we will achieve that goal, and who will be involved. This model leaves little space for the inclusion of non-conformist behaviour, in other words, deviance. The deviance from Western society on a personal or communal level can lead to the social marginalization (the movement of person or persons to the periphery of society whether institutionalized or individualized) of the individual or community leading to their exclusion through social stratification. In the context of Jaspreet Sidhu 's thesis work on the criminality and identity of (male) Punjabi Sikh youth (2012), "an interplay of parental, cultural, institutional, and societal processes impacted participants’ identities and subsequent action[s]" (iv) emphasized the tension between mainstream Canadian culture and practices, tradition and identities deviant from that of the dominant culture. Dukelow sees this as being codified through our institutions, which are often headed by those with the most power who …show more content…

5). This Canadian research also helps in defining who mainstream Canada defines as societal citizens, and who is in need of "enculturation" which is often argued as a form of post-colonial violence (Cunneen 2009; Regan 2010; Nichols 2014). The school-to-prison pipeline theory (Skiba, Arredondo, and Williams 2014) provides ample evidence for the institutionalized practice in which non-marginalized citizens of society participate actively and passively in defining the social boundaries which promote their marginalization and enforces their role as the

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