Dying to live

Youth violence and the munpain

Bibliographic Data

ID3176341
AuthorsYusef Bakkali (0000-0001-7296-2485, Birmingham City University, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume67
Issue6
Pages1317-1332
Publication date2019-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0038026119842012
OpenAlexW2933217277
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited46

This article engages with accounts of the everyday experiences of young adults living in London who have been involved with road life (street culture) and how their narratives might help us to better understand issues of youth violence in the UK. Through an exploration of their experiences, this article argues that deeply embedded structural contradictions are leaving a generation of marginalised young people dying to live as they become locked in an existential struggle against a sense of malaise permeating many of their everyday experiences. These experiences of social suffering are conceptualised through 'the munpain'. The munpain is a psychosocial concept which articulates the impact of structurally routed violence, inherent in late-modern neoliberal states, within the everyday lives of marginalised young adults living in a contemporary urban context. This article draws on interview data from two young men, Stephen and T, who have both been victims of knife crime and have spent much of their lives involved with youth groups self-identifying as gangs. In this article, I demonstrate some of the often unspoken struggles that saturate their lives. These experiences induce agentic responses as people seek to alleviate their suffering, at times affecting them in ways that lead to acts of violence. Moreover, I also elaborate on the inductive methodological approach employed to denote how 'the munpain' was developed while working alongside marginalised young adults

Aesthetics · Context (archaeology) · Criminology · Everyday life · Existentialism · Malaise · Narrative · Political science · Psychosocial · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Youth studies · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Gender Studies · History · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub