#11994. Becoming a skinhead: An ethnobiography of brutalized life and reflective violence

November 2026publication date
Proposal available till 03-06-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for
Journal’s subject area:
Sociology and Political Science;
Places in the authors’ list:
place 1place 2place 3place 4
FreeFreeFreeFree
2350 $1200 $1050 $900 $
Contract №11994.1 Contract №11994.2 Contract №11994.3 Contract №11994.4
1 place - free (for sale)
2 place - free (for sale)
3 place - free (for sale)
4 place - free (for sale)

Abstract:
This article paints the portrait of Yvan, a skinhead who lived in close proximity to the streets and to life at the margins, with all its attendant violence, before dying at the age of 28. While the salient features of this portrait might seem to be social relegation and brutal racism, the value of this text is to be found in the complexity and nuance that Yvan brought to the descriptions of his own life. This insider perspective follows on from the tradition of biographical studies dedicated to the process of ‘becoming deviant’ inaugurated by the first sociologists of the Chicago School, while at the same time providing the material for a theoretical proposition expressed through the concepts of brutalized life and reflective violence. Much of Yvan’s life was a litany of violence, which he first endured, then threw back in society’s face and perpetrated himself, no doubt precisely because this life of his had been brutalized by such all-permeating violence. These two concepts have the potential to be extended to other cases and to enrich sociological debates about forms of violence that cannot fully be explained by situational and practical approaches, or by perspectives that focus on structural and symbolic factors.
Keywords:
Becoming deviant; brutalized life; race/class; reflective violence; skinhead

Contacts :
0