Talking Good: Analysing Narratives of Desistance in Norway

Despite significant research interest in Norwegian penality, there remains much to be learned about how people in Norway experience life during and after punishment. This article is one of the first to explore the lived experience of desistance as narrated by Norwegian desisters. We analyse ‘small stories’ that either opened up or frustrated the co-creation of change, showing how desistance develops (or is stymied) at a micro level. Our analytical framework helped us understand our informants as active subjects navigating a complex terrain of psychological, relational and systemic processes. Informants described a long-term, unfinalized desistance process, leading in some cases to an extended experience of liminality and welfare supplication.