Making institutional conversations with people who have committed violence work

Description

This dissertation project uses conversation analysis (CA) to unpack how participants in institutional conversations about violence perpetration build and maintain the relationship between them in ways that are appropriate in relation to institutional goals, such as supporting people in seeking help for their violent behaviour. The purpose of the project is to develop knowledge that contributes to strengthening social work practice in the area of ​​violence perpetration in intimate relationships.

The dissertation analyses two materials: research interviews with young people who have subjected others to sexual abuse (Drawing the Line) and investigative interviews within social services with men who are suspected of committing violence against their children and partners (iRISK). Conversation analysis (CA) enables unpacking of how the participants in these conversations use verbal and non-verbal resources such as specific question formulations or voice quality to build on and resist each other’s turns of talk to co-achieve the on-going relationship between them. The findings are discussed in light of their relevance to institutional goals that are typically pursued in conversations with persons who perpetrate violence (such as enabling disclosure or supporting the client’s problem ownership).

The project consists of four sub-studies:

The first sub-study is a longitudinal conversation analytic case-study examining on how the interviewer and interviewee in a research interview builds and maintains a relationship between them that enables the interviewee to disclose the violence he committed.

The second sub-study examines how such relationship-building and -maintaining practices are achieved in risk assessment interviews in social services, where the overarching interactional project is more complex, both in terms of the purpose of the conversation (risk assessment and creating an alliance) and whether the client and investigator have a common understanding and investment in that purpose.

The third sub-study is aimed at neutralizations, a frequent phenomenon in conversations about violence. Here, we examine how such are handled in research interviews in a way that maintains the relationship without supporting problematic practices, such as externalizing responsibility for the violence.

The fourth sub-study examines how explicit questions about violence – and the answers – are handled within the framework of structured assessment supports. Here, the specific focus is on how the client resists the questions agenda in a way that affects the institutionally relevant goal of problem ownership.

Together, the four sub-studies contribute to developing detailed interactional knowledge both about how relationships are achieved in conversations about relationally demanding topics, and how specific challenges such as neutralizations or clients’ apprehension to disclose or define their violence as violence are managed in a way that maintains the relationship with regard to other institutional purposes. The theoretical contribution is to develop conversation analysis as a method for analysing relational practices.