Know your place: Comparing memories of institutional violence across class (KYP)
KYP explores how class influences the ways in which memories of institutional violence have been shaped, perceived, and dealt with in the aftermath at individual and collective levels.
Testimonies of violence from institutions designed for care and education increasingly make media headlines worldwide. In the Danish context, stories of institutional violence have focused especially on the reformatory school Godhavn and the elite boarding school Herlufsholm. Collecting and examining autobiographical, cultural, and public memories from reformatory schools and elite boarding schools in Denmark, KYP will explore the interplay of class and remembered institutional violence at the bottom and top of the Danish society.
Institutional violence is often explained with reference to brutalized and corrupted closed cultures. KYP's main scientific contribution is to illustrate how institutional violence must be understood in the context of the surrounding society and the distinct social, economic, and political purposes of the schools. Comparing memories across marginalized and privileged social positions will highlight how class-specific ideologies and expectations influence not only how institutional violence is practiced, normalized, and legitimized, but also how memories of abuse are shaped and managed. Furthermore, the project aims to deepen our understanding of how class influences victims' ability to gain recognition and mobilize social change.
The project is driven by a central research question: How and to what extent does class influence how memories of institutional violence are attributed meaning by individuals and in the public sphere?
The main research question is broken down into three sub-questions that aim to identify similarities and differences between memories of Danish reformatory and elite boarding schools.
- How is institutional violence remembered, reflected upon, and renegotiated by former pupils?
- How are institutional violence and its victims represented in literature and memoirs?
- How is institutional violence politicised and reconciled through the media?
These questions will be explored through three sub-projects that aim to shed light on how class influences the complex dynamics operating between autobiographical, cultural, and public memory.
- Shamus Khan, Professor at Princeton University
- Jenny Wüstenberg, Professor at Nottingham Trent University
- Birgitte Søland, Associate Professor at Ohio State University
- Katie Wright, Associate Professor at La Trope University
- Johanna Sköld, Professor at Linköping University
- Petter Sandgren, Senior Lecturer at Stockholm University
- Dorte Marie Søndergaard, Professor at Aarhus University
Researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stine Grønbæk Jensen | Assistant Professor - Tenure Track |
