Doing Violence, Concepts of Masculinity, and Biographical Subjectivity - Three Case Studies

Abstract

The paper focuses on the relationship between gender and violence in context of prison interaction. Theoretical it criticises concepts which link masculinity to violence in a general way. These concepts are challenged by a psychosocial concept of gender and a biographical approach. To understand the correspondence between the prison institution, patterns of masculinity reproduced in there, and the biographical meaning violence in prison has from the perspective of young men today, a sensible concept of gender is nessecary. A systematically view on the conflicting and context-bounded dimensions of male subjectivity opens the way not only to insights on an individual level. These insights are shown by hermeneutic case-interpretations and by comparing cases. Three case studies, stemming from qualitatve interviews with young prisoners in juvenile detention centers in Germany, represent different ways of dealing with violence, connected with different biographical processes and conflicts of adolescence and male autonomy.