TY - JOUR PY - 2013// TI - Security, respect and culture in British teenagers' discourses of knife-carrying JO - Safer communities A1 - Palasinski, Marek SP - 71 EP - 78 VL - 12 IS - 2 N2 - 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.

LA - SN - 1757-8043 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17578041311315049 ID - ref1 ER -