A New Approach for Researching Victims: The ‘Strength-Growth-Resilience’ Framework

Abstract

This paper proposes a new framework for researching victims that blends appreciative inquiry methods used by prison researchers with narrative interview methods used by desistance researchers to investigate victim ‘strength-growth-resilience’. Alongside established victimological concerns with the extent, distribution and treatment of crime victims, this framework offers an alternative lens that focuses on victim agency, identity and transformation. Building on the emancipatory project of feminist victimology, narrative and cultural criminology and an emerging narrative victimology the framework aims to provide a new conceptual reference point for victimological research. The article’s objectives are to demonstrate that this framework delivers a theoretically, empirically and ethically robust approach for exploring the mechanisms by which victims become resilient, and can even flourish, in the aftermath of criminal harm.

Narrative Resilience Among Formerly Incarcerated Mothers

“…When offered space to share their experiences, victims’ stories can reveal how they use narrative to give meaning to how their victimization changed them, including through increased resiliency and strength (Green et al, 2021). In advocating for a “narrative plasticity” that gives victims more control over their stories, Clark (2020) argued that when victims are granted space only to talk about a narrow range of their experiences, their narratives ossify, resulting in “narrative foreclosure”—the process through which new experiences and interpretations can no longer substantially change an individual’s life story (Clark, 2020, p. 10).…”

Navigating professionals’ conditions for co-production of victim support: A conceptual article

“…A pertinent condition for meeting the victim's individual support needs thus seems to be to encourage active participation by the victim and to listen to the victim's own perception of what happened (cf. Green et al, 2021;Shapland, 2018). In doing so, professionals must go beyond the prevailing victim discourse in the co-production of support with victims, and instead listen to the victims' experiences and expressions of what they need to process these experiences.…”

“…In accordance with the above, the impact of the structural understanding should preferably be minimized in this step. Instead, the victim's agency and empowerment as a support user become important aspects for the professional to keep in mind, in order not to just make decisions and assessments that do not align with how the victims perceive themselves (Banwell-Moore, 2023;Green et al, 2021;Thunberg, 2020). The victim's first contact with the support system plays a crucial role in the subsequent process.…”

“…Fohring, 2018; Holmberg et al, 2020; Jägervi, 2014; Lerner, 1980). Similarly, several researchers have problematized the fact that victim discourses, such as the assumption of an ideal victim, deny victims a voice in their cases, as they treat victims as passive and do not take their resilience into account (Green et al, 2021; McAlinden, 2014; Walklate, 2011).…”

“…Pemberton et al (2017) argue that victimization can negatively affect the individual’s feeling of agency and communion, while Thunberg (2020) further builds on that argument, stressing that post-victimization support needs to focus on strengthening the individual’s feeling of agency and communion. Through Green et al’s (2021) arguments, which focus on victims’ narratives, individuals’ resilience and strength are both added to the understanding of victimhood, which also puts more focus on victim agency. Listening to individuals’ narratives of victimizing events and how they have affected them can be a starting point for the co-production of support services that are adapted to individuals’ needs and contexts.…”