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Abstract
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The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of English adolescents' views on knife-carrying and offer a potential framework for challenging their implicit tolerance of the phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach - A sample of 25 adolescents from three large English cities (London, Birmingham and Manchester) was interviewed about knife-carrying at seven youth community centers and their narratives were analyzed by drawing on the classical discourse analysis and the concept of narrative repertoires.
Findings - The adolescents constructed the social and legal consequences of knife-carrying as normal, trivial and inevitable.
Research limitations/implications - Talking to a stranger with a voice recorder about the sensitive subject of knife-carrying appeared to be problematic, which probably had an inhibitory effect despite the conversational warm-up and assured anonymity.
Practical implications - Cautioning against creating common sense associations between knife-carrying and irresponsibility or deviance, the paper emphasizes the need for the focus on the low controllability and unpredictability of the knife.
Originality/value - The paper presents scholars and outreach workers with an intimate glimpse of how personal responsibility for knife-carrying and its potential consequences could be diminished by removing the agency from the carrier and rhetorically placing it in society. |