ABSTRACT
Ethnography has a long history in the humanities and social sciences and has provided the base line in the field of police studies for over 60 years. We have recently witnessed a resurgence in ethnographic practice among police scholars, and this Handbook is a response to that revival. Students and academics are returning to the ethnography arena and the study of police in situ to explain the evocative worlds of the police. The list of ethnographic sites is vast and all have fed the rejuvenation of ethnographic endeavour. Together they suggest innovation, theoretical depth, broad geographical boundaries, multi-site experiments, and multi-disciplinarity, all of which are central to the exploration of police and policing in the twenty-first century.
This Handbook encapsulates the revival of police ethnography by exploring its multidisciplinary field and cataloguing the ongoing ethnographic work. It offers an original and international contribution to the field of police studies and research methods, providing a comprehensive and overarching guide to police ethnography. We see the previous classics in every page and still note the influence of the early ethnographers. At the same time, we see the innovative breadth and diversity of these narratives. The aim of this Handbook is to highlight the mosaic that is police ethnography at a point in time and note with pleasure its contribution to the field once more. Ethnography may be messy, difficult, and at times uncooperative, but its results offer a unique insight into the perspectives of people and organisations that can hide in plain sight.
An accessible and compelling read, this Handbook will provide a sound and essential reference source for academics, researchers, students, and practitioners engaged in police and criminal justice studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section Section One|114 pages
Mapping the field: histories, theories, and controversies
section Section Two|184 pages
Access and ethics
chapter 8|17 pages
Staying cool in a hot spot
chapter 13|17 pages
Reflections on trust and acceptance in ethnographic studies of policing
chapter 14|15 pages
Policed ethnography
chapter 17|16 pages
Access denied
chapter 18|17 pages
Leaving the notepad behind
section Section Three|179 pages
Ethnographic practice
chapter 19|18 pages
Staging the racial optics of police vision
chapter 20|16 pages
Why do positive experiences matter?
chapter 25|18 pages
Lurking with paedophile hunters
chapter 28|17 pages
Exploring emotionality in ethnographic encounters
section Section Four|176 pages
Widening the ethnographic lens