‘There should be no open doors in the police’: criminal investigations in northern Ghana as boundary work

Beek, Jan

doi:10.1017/s0022278x12000353

Cited by 33 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Many recent ethnographic studies on police discretion have investigated how police officers make their decisions and how these inevitably include the making of distinctions and boundaries (e.g. Beek 2012Beek , 2016Fassin 2013Fassin , 2015Kyed & Albrecht 2015;Schneider 2014). For instance, Beek has argued that police practices can essentially be examined in terms of 'boundary work and boundary shifting ' (2012, 554).…”

Section: Affective Politics Of Order-making In the Realm Of Police DImentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Sensory Policing of Vices

Leser

2020

JEA

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This paper explores the policing of vices and offers a critical inquiry into the affective politics of policing practices seen through police and state ethnography, political anthropology, and the 'affective turn' in social and cultural theory. It shows how the moral worlds of policing sex work and performing raids in the red-light 'milieu' are constituted in the making of boundaries through visual, olfactory, somatosensory, and auditory sensations, which can be understood as normative performances in the realm of morality. Police officers do not engage in a neutral gaze but transform the sensuous into sensations that enact these normative distinctions between the 'normal' and the 'abnormal' -the morally questionable red-light 'milieu.' These practices can be read in regard to a morality that is conveyed in and through the officers' sensational performances in an observingly affective and somatic manner. Morality not simply is but is being done-and performing affects and sensations plays a significant role in the making of moral worlds in the realm of policing. Raiding the red-light 'milieu' is a performance on disorder and order, on what is normal and what is not, and thus a deeply political practice that reveals how order-and boundary-making operates through basic sensations and feelings, of the sensuous, the aesthetic, and the somatic.

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Section: Affective Politics Of Order-making In the Realm Of Police DImentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Sensory Policing of Vices

Leser

2020

JEA

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“…Studies within anthropology in particular have provided insight into the everyday security practices across the continent. Although some of these studies have examined the everyday workings of state armed forces (e.g., Beek 2012;Göpfert 2012;Hornberger 2011;Owen 2016), most of the research on policing in Africa has empirically centered around non-state actors, which broadly refers to actors who are not (directly) aligned to or working within the larger state apparatus. Th ese studies have focused on gangs (Jensen 2008a;van Stapele 2015), vigilante organizations (Buur 2006;Pratten 2008), political and traditional authorities (Buur and Kyed 2006), community policing initiatives (Kyed 2009), and recently the work of private security companies (Diphoorn 2016b).…”

Section: Policing and Authority In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

"Eyes, Ears, and Wheels"

Colona

Diphoorn

2017

Conflict and Society

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Research on policing in Africa has provided tremendous insight into how non-state actors, such as gangs, vigilantes, private security companies, and community initiatives, increasingly provide security for urban dwellers across the continent. Consequently, the state has been categorized as one order among many whose authority is co-constituted through relations with other actors. Drawing on our ethnographic fieldwork in the past two years, we highlight how the state police dominates security arrangements in Nairobi and asserts itself not just as one order among many. We show how, in various policing partnerships between police, private security companies, and residents’ associations, the state police acts as a coagulating agent of such practices. In order to elucidate this relationship, we utilize the “junior partner” model from the criminology literature and expand based on the community policing initiatives that in Nairobi act as the “eyes, ears, and wheels” of the police.

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“…Regardless of the impressive results provided by social and cultural anthropologists working on police and gendarmes in West Africa, 18 researching everyday security in Somaliland's remote and coastal areas is not feasible. Chronic insecurity, land and political disputes, radicalisation and the risk of kidnapping mean that it is impossible for internationals to 'go to the field' in order to understand how people go about their daily routines; 19 in Puntland's remote and neglected districts of Alula and Bargal.…”

Section: Remote and Coastal Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Off-road policing: communications technology and government authority in Somaliland

Hills

2016

International Affairs

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Prompted by the trend to see information and communications technology (ICT) as a tool for capacity building, this article asks whether the use of ICT has—or can—recast centre–periphery relations in a hybrid country such as Somaliland. Taking as its departure point Herbst's observation that a fundamental problem confronting African leaders concerns how to extend or consolidate authority over sparsely settled lands, it uses recent developments in Somaliland's coast guard and immigration police to assess ICT's contribution to changing security provision in remote and coastal areas. This allows for an analysis of Somaliland's law enforcement framework, the relationship between its politics and practice, the practical application of its coercive resources, and the Silanyo government's priorities and preference for consensus and co‐existence whenever security imperatives allow. It suggests that ICT can be a desirable operational tool or a variable in existing power networks, but that it does not represent a new mode of security governance. ICT's potential to connect Somaliland's government and populace, and politics and practice, is for now minimal, but identifying the ways in which security actors such as coast guards actually use ICT allows for a more accurate assessment of the variables shaping centre–periphery relations. Contrary to Herbst's observation, the Silanyo government does not need to overtly or systematically extend, consolidate or exert its authority in remote and coastal areas. Spatial metaphors such as centre–periphery help to clarify the situation, but the significance invested in them reflects western rationalities, rather than Somali realities.

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‘There should be no open doors in the police’: criminal investigations in northern Ghana as boundary work

Cited by 33 publications

References 38 publications

On the Sensory Policing of Vices

On the Sensory Policing of Vices

"Eyes, Ears, and Wheels"

Off-road policing: communications technology and government authority in Somaliland

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