PhD Defence by Ann-Karina Henriksen
Ann-Karina Henriksen will defend her PhD thesis: Dramatiske liv - en antropologisk undersøgelse af pigeperspektiver på vold og konflikter [Dramatic life - an anthropological study of girls' perspectives on violence and conflict.].
Friday, 25 October 2013 from 13:00 in Theory room 25.1.
Review Committee:
Professor Hanne Warming, RU (chairman of the committee)
Professor MSO Dorthe Staunæs, DPU
Senior Researcher Bo Wagner Sørensen, LOKK
Supervisor:
Associate Professor Yvonne Mørck
The thesis is an ethnographic study of girls' perspectives on the use of violence and involvement in potentially violent conflict. Empirically, the thesis is based on fieldwork in Copenhagen and Copenhagen West. The thesis adopts an anthropological perspective on violence as a meaningful social practice and examine the conditions and perspectives that inhibit and promote violence. The theoretical basis for the thesis is Randall Collins' micro-sociological violence theory, which in combination with Bronwyn Davies, Henrik Vigh, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, forms an analytical model that emphasizes the link between violence situations, subjectivisation processes and social context.
The thesis shows that girls mostly use violence reactively to protect people and opportunities, in both the short and long term. The use of violence is a part of girls' navigations between young people on the streets, where violence and threatening behaviour is a tool for positioning. The thesis also shows that violence as actuality and potentiality unfolds into and out of each other in complex social processes that shape everyday life in profound ways. The conflict terrain described in the thesis is a dramatic place to stay, and questions about social life and death feature as pivotal points for girls' violent conflicts.
Professor Lisa Richey will lead the defence
ISG will host a reception afterwards.