His, hers and theirs: comparative narratives from young people who use violence
ISSN: 1757-8043
Article publication date: 2 February 2023
Issue publication date: 17 February 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore narratives of violence in the lives of young men and young women in Australia. Through partnering with young people to understand and make meaning of their stories, the authors highlight similarities and differences in gendered experiences of violence, and the implications of these for cross-disciplinary practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This article presents the synthesis of narrative data from two separate studies that worked with justice-involved young men and young women, who had both experienced and used violence. Study 1 used a thematic analysis of practitioner narratives and qualitative data from in-session narratives. Study 2 used a thematic analysis of interview data using grounded approach and peer review to promote trustworthiness and inter-rater reliability.
Findings
Insights on the experiences of young people who use violence are notably absent in most forms of violence discourse, practice and research. Findings demonstrate that understandings of youth violence are linked to identity, but also situated within contexts of trauma, place, gender, relationality and community. This conceptualisation of violence is particularly important to understandings of young female violence.
Originality/value
Through collaborative approaches of co-design and co-production, the paper outlines that a stronger understanding of the experiences of young men and young women (often an over-looked cohort) in the justice system can help improve the trauma-informed and gender responsiveness of interventions across practice settings. The authors highlight that exploring gendered differences in narratives of youth violence is necessary and seeking lived experiences of youth justice young people is instructive to academia, policy and practice.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Name. Narrate. Navigate work has been generously supported by funding awarded under the DSS Community Grants Hub 4-83UAO4R. The funder had no direct involvement in the original research or this study.
Declarations of interest: Ethics approvals for both studies found no conflicts of interest.
Author contributions: Louise Rak and Timothy Warton: Conceptualisation, methodology, data curation, writing – original draft preparation, visualisation, investigation writing, reviewing and editing.
Citation
Rak, L. and Warton, T. (2023), "His, hers and theirs: comparative narratives from young people who use violence", Safer Communities, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 42-55. https://doi.org/10.1108/SC-08-2022-0033
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited