Ann-Karina Henriksen
Biographic Data
| ID | 190935 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ann-Karina Henriksen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ann-Karina |
| FAMILY NAME | Henriksen |
| SIGNATURE | HENRIKSEN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aalborg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5374-3228 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 72 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
In-between Belonging and Longing: Young People Running Away from Residential Institutions
This article explores motivations of young people running away from residential care institutions. Running away from out-of-home care is often viewed as problematic due to its serious consequences for both the runaways, the other residents and the institutions. Drawing on 19 individual interviews and six focus groups with young people living in residential care, this article examines their experiences of running away within a theoretical framewor…
The ambiguities of coercion: Mapping adolescents' experiences of coercion in institutional everyday life
The article presents a metasynthesis of qualitative studies, which have described and analysed adolescents' experiences of coercion in institutional contexts such as psychiatric care, child welfare and juvenile justice. The study finds that coercion is an ambiguous practice, mainly used for protection and treatment purposes, while it is often experienced as punitive. Acknowledging the ambiguities of coercion can contribute to a more nuanced under…
“It’s my life they are talking about” – On children’s participation in decision-making for secure placement
In Denmark, secure institutions are the most intrusive form of out-of-home placement. This article explores how children and young people experience participating in decisions involving secure placement. The analysis draws on a qualitative study, which includes interviews with young people, their case manager and case file data. The young people have all been placed in a secure institution for either observation or on grounds of being a danger to…
EPA (aka A-Traktor) Girl Greasers in Sweden: Girlhood in Motion
This article focuses on girlhood in one of the youth subcultures of rural Sweden, EPA greasers. The EPA, a car that Swedes aged 15 and older can legally drive, is at the centre of EPA culture. In this uniquely and previously male Swedish youth greaser culture, there has been a recent increase in the number of Swedish girls driving EPAs. Previous research has shown how EPA culture and EPA girlhood are shaped through distancing from hegemonic urban…
Locked up and safe – But for how long? Exploring how legitimising narratives shape decisions to sustain placement in secure institutions
This article draws on findings from a qualitative study in Denmark on decision-making related to secure placement of young people. The article identifies a repertoire of narratives that legitimise the decision and contribute to sustain the placement in secure accommodation. Secure placement is imbued with a range of dilemmas serving a purpose to protect and provide care for young people assessed to be at risk to themselves or others. However, con…
What about Last Time: Exploring Potentiality in Danish Young Women’s Violent Conflicts
The article explores how violence as actuality and potentiality shapes the lives of Danish at-risk girls and young women. The article draws on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Copenhagen and includes 25 girls and young women aged 13 to 23 who have all experienced using physical violence. Centering on a single young woman's narrative, violence is analyzed as a meaningful social practice intimately linked to navigating violent social terra…
Temporal Experiences of Confinement: Exploring Young People’s Experiences in Danish Secure Institutions
This article explores temporality in young peoples’ narratives of confinement on welfare grounds in Danish secure institutions. The analysis draws on data from two qualitative studies on young people’s experiences of confinement. Drawing on Michael Flaherty’s conceptualization of ‘making time’ (Flaherty, M. G., 2002, Symbolic Interaction, 25, 3, 379–388), we explore the unsteady passing of time, the agentic practices of manipulating and obliterat…
Introduction to Special Issue: Exploring Confinement from the Perspectives of Young People
How do young people experience confinement, and what are the consequences of being confined? These are the key questions we wish to address in this special issue. The confinement of young people is a contested issue and generally not given much attention. In most societies, only a small number of young people experience being confined. However, because confinement is one of the most intrusive forms of control and punishment, and often directed at…
Ethnography of young people in confinement: On Subjectivity, Positionality and Situated Ethics in Closed Space
This article explores the strengths and limitations of doing ethnographic research with young people in confinement. The article draws on two studies from Scotland and Denmark, and reflects on critical issues such as getting access, obtaining informed and voluntary consent, emotional challenges, safety, positionality and situated ethics. While a substantial body of literature addresses the methodological challenges of doing ethnographic research …
So, Why Am I Here?’ Ambiguous Practices of Protection, Treatment and Punishment in Danish Secure Institutions for Youth
This article explores how a nexus of punishment, treatment and protection creates unique mechanisms of control in secure institutions for young people. It is based on a study in Danish secure institutions, which accommodate young people confined on legal and welfare grounds. In these hybrid institutions, protection, treatment and punishment merge in ambiguous and contradictory practices that are experienced as unjust or even harmful by the young …
Altering Violent Repertoires: Perspectives on Violence in the Prison-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Program Anger Management
Based on ethnographic research in three Danish prisons, this article explores meanings of violence among prisoners, as they are narrated in the context of the prison-based cognitive-behavioral program Anger Management. The empirical data shows that the prisoners' and instructors' perspectives and understandings of violence diverge in significant ways. We find that these discrepancies result in disputes and misunderstandings, where prisoners' expe…
Vulnerable Girls and Dangerous Boys: Gendered Practices of Discipline in Secure Care
The study explores the gendered institutional practices and rationalities applied to young people placed in Danish secure institutions. The study draws on ethnographic research, combining participant observation and interviews to gain insight into professionals’ gendered practices and rationalities, and young people’s experiences of confinement. Drawing on Foucauldian power analytics and post-structuralist feminist theory on subjectivity, the stu…
Promoting Gender Sensitivity in Social Work
The article reflects on teaching gender theory to students who are not enrolled in a gender programme. It argues that learning can be facilitated to social work students by tapping into their own gendered experiences and by linking gender to wider concerns about social inequality. The article draws on personal notes from teaching gender and social diversity to social work students. In this context, two main obstacles are identified: anti-feminism…
I was a scarf-like gangster girl’ – Negotiating gender and ethnicity on the street
Drawing on an ethnographic study in Copenhagen, this article explores the gendered ethnicities of young women navigating multi-ethnic street terrains. The study includes an ethnically heterogeneous sample of 25 women aged 13–23 who are involved in street-oriented peer groups and activities. The analysis demonstrates how young women modify their lifestyle, language, body and posture to establish proximity to ethnic minority youth. By applying inte…
Confined to Care: Girls' Gendered Vulnerabilities in Secure Institutions
In Denmark, secure care institutions are gender-integrated and accommodate young people with a wide range of psychiatric and social troubles. The large majority of young people are placed here in surrogate custody, and a minority, mostly girls, are placed here in protective care. Based on a qualitative study of gendered practices and experiences in Danish secure care institutions, this article provides insight into how gender and pathology merge …
Trivializing violence: Marginalized youth narrating everyday violence
This article analyzes narratives of violence based on interviews with 43 marginalized young Danish people. Their narratives reveal that violence is not only experienced as singular, dramatic encounters; violence is also trivialized in their everyday lives. By drawing on anthropological perspectives on everyday violence, we propose a sensitizing framework that enables the exploration of trivialized violence. This framework integrates three perspec…
Navigating Hypermasculine Terrains: Female Tactics for Safety and Social Mastery
The study addresses how young women navigate urban terrains that are characterized by high levels of interpersonal aggression and crime. It is argued that young women apply a range of gendered tactics to establish safety and social mastery, and that these are framed by the limits and possibilities imposed by a street-based hypermasculine script. The analysis rests on an ethnographic study among 25 young Danish women aged 13 to 23 experienced in e…
Dorthe Marie Søndergaard & Jette Raundahl Kofoed (red.): Mobning gentænkt
Anmeldes af Ann-Karina Henriksen
Dramatic lives and relevant becomings: Toward a Deleuze- and Guattari-inspired cartography of young women’s violent conflicts
The article explores how violence works to produce young women’s precarious positions in social milieus characterized by multiple marginalization. By paying attention to the micropolitics of violent engagements we argue that violent conflicts can be viewed as strategies for escaping positions of marginality into positions of relevance. The analysis builds on empirical data from Copenhagen, Denmark, gained through ethnographic fieldwork with the p…
At Leve Med Vold: Om seksualitet og vold blandt unge i Cape Town
The focus of the article is upon the relation between gender and violence as an aspect of everyday practice. It is suggested that strategies for living with violence inform gender perceptions. The article is based on research in Cape Town, South Africa and consentrates on how adolescents there speak about violence and strategies for safety. South Africa is renowned for high levels of violence such as rape or death by gunfire. Rather than focus on…
Trivializing violence: Marginalized youth narrating everyday violence
This article analyzes narratives of violence based on interviews with 43 marginalized young Danish people. Their narratives reveal that violence is not only experienced as singular, dramatic encounters; violence is also trivialized in their everyday lives. By drawing on anthropological perspectives on everyday violence, we propose a sensitizing framework that enables the exploration of trivialized violence. This framework integrates three perspec…
Dramatic lives and relevant becomings: Toward a Deleuze- and Guattari-inspired cartography of young women’s violent conflicts
The article explores how violence works to produce young women’s precarious positions in social milieus characterized by multiple marginalization. By paying attention to the micropolitics of violent engagements we argue that violent conflicts can be viewed as strategies for escaping positions of marginality into positions of relevance. The analysis builds on empirical data from Copenhagen, Denmark, gained through ethnographic fieldwork with the p…
Ethnography of young people in confinement: On Subjectivity, Positionality and Situated Ethics in Closed Space
This article explores the strengths and limitations of doing ethnographic research with young people in confinement. The article draws on two studies from Scotland and Denmark, and reflects on critical issues such as getting access, obtaining informed and voluntary consent, emotional challenges, safety, positionality and situated ethics. While a substantial body of literature addresses the methodological challenges of doing ethnographic research …
Vulnerable Girls and Dangerous Boys: Gendered Practices of Discipline in Secure Care
The study explores the gendered institutional practices and rationalities applied to young people placed in Danish secure institutions. The study draws on ethnographic research, combining participant observation and interviews to gain insight into professionals’ gendered practices and rationalities, and young people’s experiences of confinement. Drawing on Foucauldian power analytics and post-structuralist feminist theory on subjectivity, the stu…
So, Why Am I Here?’ Ambiguous Practices of Protection, Treatment and Punishment in Danish Secure Institutions for Youth
This article explores how a nexus of punishment, treatment and protection creates unique mechanisms of control in secure institutions for young people. It is based on a study in Danish secure institutions, which accommodate young people confined on legal and welfare grounds. In these hybrid institutions, protection, treatment and punishment merge in ambiguous and contradictory practices that are experienced as unjust or even harmful by the young …
Temporal Experiences of Confinement: Exploring Young People’s Experiences in Danish Secure Institutions
This article explores temporality in young peoples’ narratives of confinement on welfare grounds in Danish secure institutions. The analysis draws on data from two qualitative studies on young people’s experiences of confinement. Drawing on Michael Flaherty’s conceptualization of ‘making time’ (Flaherty, M. G., 2002, Symbolic Interaction, 25, 3, 379–388), we explore the unsteady passing of time, the agentic practices of manipulating and obliterat…
Confined to Care: Girls' Gendered Vulnerabilities in Secure Institutions
In Denmark, secure care institutions are gender-integrated and accommodate young people with a wide range of psychiatric and social troubles. The large majority of young people are placed here in surrogate custody, and a minority, mostly girls, are placed here in protective care. Based on a qualitative study of gendered practices and experiences in Danish secure care institutions, this article provides insight into how gender and pathology merge …
Navigating Hypermasculine Terrains: Female Tactics for Safety and Social Mastery
The study addresses how young women navigate urban terrains that are characterized by high levels of interpersonal aggression and crime. It is argued that young women apply a range of gendered tactics to establish safety and social mastery, and that these are framed by the limits and possibilities imposed by a street-based hypermasculine script. The analysis rests on an ethnographic study among 25 young Danish women aged 13 to 23 experienced in e…
EPA (aka A-Traktor) Girl Greasers in Sweden: Girlhood in Motion
This article focuses on girlhood in one of the youth subcultures of rural Sweden, EPA greasers. The EPA, a car that Swedes aged 15 and older can legally drive, is at the centre of EPA culture. In this uniquely and previously male Swedish youth greaser culture, there has been a recent increase in the number of Swedish girls driving EPAs. Previous research has shown how EPA culture and EPA girlhood are shaped through distancing from hegemonic urban…
Altering Violent Repertoires: Perspectives on Violence in the Prison-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Program Anger Management
Based on ethnographic research in three Danish prisons, this article explores meanings of violence among prisoners, as they are narrated in the context of the prison-based cognitive-behavioral program Anger Management. The empirical data shows that the prisoners' and instructors' perspectives and understandings of violence diverge in significant ways. We find that these discrepancies result in disputes and misunderstandings, where prisoners' expe…
I was a scarf-like gangster girl’ – Negotiating gender and ethnicity on the street
Drawing on an ethnographic study in Copenhagen, this article explores the gendered ethnicities of young women navigating multi-ethnic street terrains. The study includes an ethnically heterogeneous sample of 25 women aged 13–23 who are involved in street-oriented peer groups and activities. The analysis demonstrates how young women modify their lifestyle, language, body and posture to establish proximity to ethnic minority youth. By applying inte…
What about Last Time: Exploring Potentiality in Danish Young Women’s Violent Conflicts
The article explores how violence as actuality and potentiality shapes the lives of Danish at-risk girls and young women. The article draws on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Copenhagen and includes 25 girls and young women aged 13 to 23 who have all experienced using physical violence. Centering on a single young woman's narrative, violence is analyzed as a meaningful social practice intimately linked to navigating violent social terra…
Introduction to Special Issue: Exploring Confinement from the Perspectives of Young People
How do young people experience confinement, and what are the consequences of being confined? These are the key questions we wish to address in this special issue. The confinement of young people is a contested issue and generally not given much attention. In most societies, only a small number of young people experience being confined. However, because confinement is one of the most intrusive forms of control and punishment, and often directed at…
At Leve Med Vold: Om seksualitet og vold blandt unge i Cape Town
The focus of the article is upon the relation between gender and violence as an aspect of everyday practice. It is suggested that strategies for living with violence inform gender perceptions. The article is based on research in Cape Town, South Africa and consentrates on how adolescents there speak about violence and strategies for safety. South Africa is renowned for high levels of violence such as rape or death by gunfire. Rather than focus on…
Dramatic lives and relevant becomings: Toward a Deleuze- and Guattari-inspired cartography of young women’s violent conflicts
The article explores how violence works to produce young women’s precarious positions in social milieus characterized by multiple marginalization. By paying attention to the micropolitics of violent engagements we argue that violent conflicts can be viewed as strategies for escaping positions of marginality into positions of relevance. The analysis builds on empirical data from Copenhagen, Denmark, gained through ethnographic fieldwork with the p…
Dorthe Marie Søndergaard & Jette Raundahl Kofoed (red.): Mobning gentænkt
Anmeldes af Ann-Karina Henriksen
Navigating Hypermasculine Terrains: Female Tactics for Safety and Social Mastery
The study addresses how young women navigate urban terrains that are characterized by high levels of interpersonal aggression and crime. It is argued that young women apply a range of gendered tactics to establish safety and social mastery, and that these are framed by the limits and possibilities imposed by a street-based hypermasculine script. The analysis rests on an ethnographic study among 25 young Danish women aged 13 to 23 experienced in e…
Trivializing violence: Marginalized youth narrating everyday violence
This article analyzes narratives of violence based on interviews with 43 marginalized young Danish people. Their narratives reveal that violence is not only experienced as singular, dramatic encounters; violence is also trivialized in their everyday lives. By drawing on anthropological perspectives on everyday violence, we propose a sensitizing framework that enables the exploration of trivialized violence. This framework integrates three perspec…
Vulnerable Girls and Dangerous Boys: Gendered Practices of Discipline in Secure Care
The study explores the gendered institutional practices and rationalities applied to young people placed in Danish secure institutions. The study draws on ethnographic research, combining participant observation and interviews to gain insight into professionals’ gendered practices and rationalities, and young people’s experiences of confinement. Drawing on Foucauldian power analytics and post-structuralist feminist theory on subjectivity, the stu…
Promoting Gender Sensitivity in Social Work
The article reflects on teaching gender theory to students who are not enrolled in a gender programme. It argues that learning can be facilitated to social work students by tapping into their own gendered experiences and by linking gender to wider concerns about social inequality. The article draws on personal notes from teaching gender and social diversity to social work students. In this context, two main obstacles are identified: anti-feminism…
I was a scarf-like gangster girl’ – Negotiating gender and ethnicity on the street
Drawing on an ethnographic study in Copenhagen, this article explores the gendered ethnicities of young women navigating multi-ethnic street terrains. The study includes an ethnically heterogeneous sample of 25 women aged 13–23 who are involved in street-oriented peer groups and activities. The analysis demonstrates how young women modify their lifestyle, language, body and posture to establish proximity to ethnic minority youth. By applying inte…
Confined to Care: Girls' Gendered Vulnerabilities in Secure Institutions
In Denmark, secure care institutions are gender-integrated and accommodate young people with a wide range of psychiatric and social troubles. The large majority of young people are placed here in surrogate custody, and a minority, mostly girls, are placed here in protective care. Based on a qualitative study of gendered practices and experiences in Danish secure care institutions, this article provides insight into how gender and pathology merge …
So, Why Am I Here?’ Ambiguous Practices of Protection, Treatment and Punishment in Danish Secure Institutions for Youth
This article explores how a nexus of punishment, treatment and protection creates unique mechanisms of control in secure institutions for young people. It is based on a study in Danish secure institutions, which accommodate young people confined on legal and welfare grounds. In these hybrid institutions, protection, treatment and punishment merge in ambiguous and contradictory practices that are experienced as unjust or even harmful by the young …
Altering Violent Repertoires: Perspectives on Violence in the Prison-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Program Anger Management
Based on ethnographic research in three Danish prisons, this article explores meanings of violence among prisoners, as they are narrated in the context of the prison-based cognitive-behavioral program Anger Management. The empirical data shows that the prisoners' and instructors' perspectives and understandings of violence diverge in significant ways. We find that these discrepancies result in disputes and misunderstandings, where prisoners' expe…
Temporal Experiences of Confinement: Exploring Young People’s Experiences in Danish Secure Institutions
This article explores temporality in young peoples’ narratives of confinement on welfare grounds in Danish secure institutions. The analysis draws on data from two qualitative studies on young people’s experiences of confinement. Drawing on Michael Flaherty’s conceptualization of ‘making time’ (Flaherty, M. G., 2002, Symbolic Interaction, 25, 3, 379–388), we explore the unsteady passing of time, the agentic practices of manipulating and obliterat…
Introduction to Special Issue: Exploring Confinement from the Perspectives of Young People
How do young people experience confinement, and what are the consequences of being confined? These are the key questions we wish to address in this special issue. The confinement of young people is a contested issue and generally not given much attention. In most societies, only a small number of young people experience being confined. However, because confinement is one of the most intrusive forms of control and punishment, and often directed at…
Ethnography of young people in confinement: On Subjectivity, Positionality and Situated Ethics in Closed Space
This article explores the strengths and limitations of doing ethnographic research with young people in confinement. The article draws on two studies from Scotland and Denmark, and reflects on critical issues such as getting access, obtaining informed and voluntary consent, emotional challenges, safety, positionality and situated ethics. While a substantial body of literature addresses the methodological challenges of doing ethnographic research …
Locked up and safe – But for how long? Exploring how legitimising narratives shape decisions to sustain placement in secure institutions
This article draws on findings from a qualitative study in Denmark on decision-making related to secure placement of young people. The article identifies a repertoire of narratives that legitimise the decision and contribute to sustain the placement in secure accommodation. Secure placement is imbued with a range of dilemmas serving a purpose to protect and provide care for young people assessed to be at risk to themselves or others. However, con…
What about Last Time: Exploring Potentiality in Danish Young Women’s Violent Conflicts
The article explores how violence as actuality and potentiality shapes the lives of Danish at-risk girls and young women. The article draws on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Copenhagen and includes 25 girls and young women aged 13 to 23 who have all experienced using physical violence. Centering on a single young woman's narrative, violence is analyzed as a meaningful social practice intimately linked to navigating violent social terra…
“It’s my life they are talking about” – On children’s participation in decision-making for secure placement
In Denmark, secure institutions are the most intrusive form of out-of-home placement. This article explores how children and young people experience participating in decisions involving secure placement. The analysis draws on a qualitative study, which includes interviews with young people, their case manager and case file data. The young people have all been placed in a secure institution for either observation or on grounds of being a danger to…
EPA (aka A-Traktor) Girl Greasers in Sweden: Girlhood in Motion
This article focuses on girlhood in one of the youth subcultures of rural Sweden, EPA greasers. The EPA, a car that Swedes aged 15 and older can legally drive, is at the centre of EPA culture. In this uniquely and previously male Swedish youth greaser culture, there has been a recent increase in the number of Swedish girls driving EPAs. Previous research has shown how EPA culture and EPA girlhood are shaped through distancing from hegemonic urban…
The ambiguities of coercion: Mapping adolescents' experiences of coercion in institutional everyday life
The article presents a metasynthesis of qualitative studies, which have described and analysed adolescents' experiences of coercion in institutional contexts such as psychiatric care, child welfare and juvenile justice. The study finds that coercion is an ambiguous practice, mainly used for protection and treatment purposes, while it is often experienced as punitive. Acknowledging the ambiguities of coercion can contribute to a more nuanced under…
In-between Belonging and Longing: Young People Running Away from Residential Institutions
This article explores motivations of young people running away from residential care institutions. Running away from out-of-home care is often viewed as problematic due to its serious consequences for both the runaways, the other residents and the institutions. Drawing on 19 individual interviews and six focus groups with young people living in residential care, this article examines their experiences of running away within a theoretical framewor…
Sociology (18 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Political science (12 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Criminology (8 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Ethnography (7 works)