Constructing tales of the field: uncovering the culture of fieldwork in police ethnography

Abstract

One of the core contributions of the strong tradition of police ethnography is the emergence of a powerful critique of police culture. Through this work, researchers have explored the informal norms that structure police practices and the implications both for the experiences of policing and for central questions of social justice. Yet while research has demonstrated the power of occupational cultures in shaping what professionals consider important and thus what they do, there has been little attention paid to the culture that underpins the work through which police ethnography is produced. This paper explores how ethnographers construct accounts of fieldwork with the police and interrogates the patterned understandings that structure the way researchers think about and do police ethnography. Returning to unpublished fieldnotes generated as part of a major study of policing in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, it interrogates their connections with published fieldwork 'confessionals' to uncover the unarticulated conventions of what has come to constitute authoritative fieldwork. It suggests that accounts of ethnographic fieldwork reproduce a narrative of research in which researchers attempt to conform to the dominant norms of the setting; which emphasises tales of physicality, endurance, risk and action; and in which raw, undirected emotion is excised. This suggests a central irony in police ethnography: the dynamics of police culture it so powerfully criticises are reflected in the construction of the ethnographic process.

Researching inside police custody in four jurisdictions: ‘Getting in’, ‘getting on’, ‘getting your hands dirty’ and ‘getting through it’

“…My approach in this instance differed from other researchers in similar situations who sought to side with the police, at least superficially (e.g. Souhami, 2020;Westmarland, 2016). By saying that I appreciated both perspectives, and was thus on both sides, I expressed "critical empathy", in which researchers "understand and explain the perceptions and practices of others while simultaneously maintaining a measure of distance that allows -indeed, demandsquestioning and critiquing of these same perceptions and practices" (Jauregui, 2017: 63).…”

“…This tendency towards being closed off is also rooted in aspects of police culture, such as suspiciousness (and also isolation and solidarity) (Skolnick, 1966: 42-70), which may extend to researchers (Fassin, 2013: 18-19). At the same time, others have remarked on the surprising degree of openness that police participants display towards researchers (Souhami, 2020;Reiner 2000), including in police custody (Phillips and Brown, 1997). However, this openness may be contingent, for example on the actions of researchers including the frequency of their presence and their efforts to build trust (Souhami, 2020;Westmarland, 2016;Fassin, 2013: xii;Marks, 2004;Reiner, 2000), on their status and positionality (Phillips and Brown, 1997) and on the politics of police-academic collaboration (see below).…”

“…The politics of police research: the rise of research with the police Police research is shaped not just by personal identities, subjectivity or location, but also by the politics and culture of academia (Souhami, 2020;Henry, 2017: 171), including the growth of police-academic partnerships, particularly in the last twenty years in most parts of the Anglosphere (Bacon et al, 2020;Rojek et al, 2015;Engel and Henderson, 2014;Marks et al, 2010;Canter 2004). This is partly rooted in shifts in the academic climate, most notably the growth in the status of criminology and police studies since the 1960s (Rojek et al, 2015).…”

F*ck the Police!

“…While doing ethnography with and of police does not necessarily stand in contradiction to the ethics and promises of anthropology aimed at shedding light on human problems-something I have no doubt ethnographers of police embrace as a political project-and while we should suspend assumptions that all anthropologists must adhere to the decolonial, militant, and activist theoretical-methodological orientation that has shift ed the grounds of the discipline within the last three decades or so (Hale 2008;Harrison 1992), doing research within the current "crisis" of policing requires one to face even tougher ethical questions on the troubling position of witnessing the perpetration of violence and the dangerous humanization of police work. Th is challenge is even more pronounced for those "native" anthropologists whose gender or racial identity (or both) grant them privileged acesss (see Esperança 2015;Kraska 1996)or render them a potential target of policing when doing fi eldwork (Medeiros 2019;Souhami 2019).…”

Trauma experienced by researchers: challenges and recommendations to support students and junior scholars

“…One of the early foundational pieces of policing scholarship that directly engaged with police officers was Van Maneen's (1975) study, which focused on police socialization and incorporated many qualitative methodologies. Several policing scholars have explored methodological and ethical challenges in researching police officers (Christensen and Albrecht, 2020; Fassin, 2017; Holmberg, 2003; Ilan, 2018; Karpiak and Garriott, 2018; Rowe, 2007; Souhami, 2019; Verdery, 2014). Nevertheless, few of these scholars have addressed how to navigate trauma while conducting research related to police officers, specifically researcher trauma.…”