Samenvatting

Reflection of an inexperienced researcher who wrote a criminological biography by working with a hardened protagonist. The positionality of researcher and protagonist is used to examine how they built trust and understanding, and to explain which difficulties they faced during the process. The most challenging aspect of their collaboration was dealing with the traumatic nature of the protagonist’s life story, which brought up anger and sadness and caused the protagonist to become reluctant to hold the interviews. Dealing with these issues required a reflexive process and flexibility regarding the approach to the interviews.