Researching the policed: critical ethnography and the study of protest policing

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to consider the value of critical ethnography for the study of policing. Specifically, the article explores the benefits and challenges of using ethnographic methods to explore protest policing from the perspective of the policed. Drawing upon a longitudinal study of the policing of protests against ‘fracking’ in England, the article examines the process of conducting research with groups who are being policed in extended protest situations. Writing from a critical criminological perspective, the article suggests that this approach to studying policing from below can help advance our collective understanding of both protest and policing. In this sense, ethnographic research can play a vital role in exploring the experiences of groups marginalised in current debates and this approach provides us with an alternative viewpoint from which to examine the development of police policy and practice. The article suggests that to make this contribution to the study of protest policing, we require research that maintains a critical distance from police forces to gain access to those groups who, due to their negative perceptions and/or experiences of policing, are reluctant to engage with research. Reflecting on the development of ethnographic research on, but not with, police, the article suggests that this critical distance brings both benefits and challenges to academic research.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnography
• policing
• protest
• critical criminology

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Joanna Gilmore and Helen Monk for their collaboration on the research that underpinned this article. I would also like to acknowledge the three anonymous reviewers who provided helpful feedback to the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This work was conducted in collaboration with Dr Joanna Gilmore, University of York, and Dr Helen Monk, Liverpool John Moores University.

2 For an explanation of direct action protest, see Joyce (2016, chapter 4).