Giving Voice to Silence: A Study of State Violence in Bolzaneto Prison during the Genoa G8 Summit - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 186

10.5 Bolzaneto: A Case Study

10.5.1 Overview

In the present study, we explore the process of reconstructing narratives (Bruner
1990 ; Jackson 1990 ; Sherwin 1994 ; Penman 1990 ) as an interactive practice
between people asked to reconstruct what happened inside Bolzaneto. Although it is
difficult to arrive at a single definition (Ryan 2007 ), in this analysis we make use of
storytelling as a general term to indicate the manner of reconstructing and selecting
past events (Ewick and Silbey 1995 ; Ochs 1997 ; Ochs and Capps 2001 ). According
to the theory of Bennet and Feldman ( 1981 ), storytelling can be considered a
way to reconstruct events and actions in a narrative form and the interactions in
a courtroom, a kind of framework through the same narrative structure as the one
individuals use in everyday conversations. As a result, elements such as consistency,
coherence, and linguistic characteristics are taken into consideration (Bennet and
Feldman 1981 ; Conley and Conley 2009 ; Cotteril 2003 ; Ehrlich 2010 ). However,
this does not mean that a witness is equivalent to a narrative. In fact, in a courtroom,
no kind of story is allowed (Almog 2001 ;Burt 2009 ), but in the present study we
use the concept of narrative as a heuristic device that can facilitate the understanding
and analysis of interactions in a courtroom (Bennet and Feldman 1981 ). In fact, as
argued by Ewick and Silbey ( 1995 ), narratives can play a role in research as an
object of investigation, for instance when studying narrative production, or a method
of investigation as a means to analyze psychological or sociological factors, or,
finally, as a product of investigation, for example when the results of a study are
used for the production of accounts.
As discussed earlier, narratives are produced first in an interactive way since they
are induced by lawyers' questions; second, they are created in a cooperative manner
by witnesses. Narratives, like other social practices, are organized by the context in
which they are activated, even at the constitutive level. This is particularly relevant
for legal narratives. Actually, legal doctrine, namely, the way in which a trial or
hearings are structured, and the system of rules that govern interactions combine to
form legal narratives (Almog 2001 ; Atkinson and Drew 1979 ; Beach 1985 ). More
specifically, the system of rules states when, what, and what kind of stories must
be produced. In this respect, three aspects must be specified. First, the juridical
narration is produced mainly through question and answer. Witnesses are usually not
free to tell the facts but must adhere to lawyers' questioning and cross examination,
in which they are subjected to a relatively fixed sequence of rounds of question
and answer. During this examination the lawyers' control over witness narratives
is crucial for the construction of a legally acceptable story (O'Barr 1982 ). Second,
the witness narratives should take, as far as possible, independent and objective
evidence (such as a medical report), including it consistently in their story. Finally,
not all details are considered legally relevant. Thus, to comply with legal standards,
witnesses should avoid, or be encouraged to avoid, certain parts of their stories
(Conley and O'Barr 1990 ).