Abstract
The essays in this book come from a conference organised by the editor, bringing together scholars from several countries who have an interest in ethnographic studies of the police. Its aim was to clarify some of the ethical and political issues involved in this kind of work, as well as to explore the public contribution it can make. All of the essays discuss particular studies of policing, carried out by the authors, most of whom are anthropologists. Some chapters focus more on ethical and methodological issues, others on substantive ones (such as the character of police discretion). The studies relate to a range of very different countries: the United States; South Africa; India; Taiwan; Mozambique; Turkey; Chile; Bolivia; Thailand; Portugal; and France. The editor provides an introduction entitled ‘ethnographying the police’ in which he claims that there has been a ‘reinvention of police ethnography’ in recent years, one which has led to greater reflection on the conditions involved in the production of data and their epistemological, ethical and political implications (p. 2). He also provides an interesting chapter himself on boredom – as it affects both police and ethnographer.
While the specific focus is on police research, the methodological issues raised in the book have more general relevance. These include the ethical implications of critical social science (Herbert, Chapter 1), and more broadly those relating to ‘studying up’, along with the ways in which the selection of informants can be biased by political views or ethical commitments (McCargo, Chapter 9). Also discussed are the problems surrounding complicity, not just as this arises when the ethnographer witnesses police violence (Kyed, Chapter 5) but also when people treat the ethnographer as belonging to, or at least as closely associated with, the police (Hornberger, Chapter 2). One of the questions that arises here is: does such complicity automatically require the ethnographer to adopt a ‘critical’ stance towards illegal or unethical behaviour on the part of the police, or indeed towards their behaviour more generally? At the same time, the ethnographer is, of course, dependent upon the police to provide access to their activities, so what obligations does this carry with it? Is neutrality possible or justifiable? In addition, there is the issue of what a researcher should do when witnessing illegal activities; such as police officers taking bribes (Jauregui, Chapter 3) or apparently ‘fitting up’ a suspect (Durão, Chapter 10). Another topic addressed is whether the presence of a researcher may prompt undesirable activities that would not have occurred otherwise (McCargo, Chapter 9). Equally, though, there is the question of what responsibilities ethnographers have towards the people studied (including police officers), for example in terms of reciprocity (Jauregui, Chapter 3). Finally, the issue of the legitimacy of not revealing one’s attitudes and evaluations, indeed perhaps even giving the impression that one agrees with or approves of what has been said or done, comes into particularly sharp focus where, as one author (Herbert, Chapter 1) admits, he entered the field specifically to collect data that would provide a basis for critically challenging police practices.
The editor makes strong claims for the public impact of ethnographic work about policing, as is suggested by the title and subtitle of the book: the implication could even be that ethnography can put the world of policing to right through holding it to account. However, little evidence for such impact is offered in the volume. Furthermore, I am not convinced that the chapters provide much support for the claim that ethnographic work on policing has been ‘reinvented’ – this is to underplay the value of the considerable body of older work on this topic, much of it carried out by sociologists: Bittner; Cain; Chatterton; Manning; Punch; Van Maanen, Westley and others (see Reiner, 1992). Nevertheless, this book offers a stimulating and illuminating set of discussions, useful for what they reveal about the travails of the ethnographer as well as about the operation of the police in diverse contexts. And several of the chapters offer thoughtful discussions of the difficult methodological and ethical issues involved when studying those who exercise, but are also subject to, state power.
