Police culture, talk and action: narratives in ethnographic data

Turner, E ORCID: 0000-0003-2247-3696 and Rowe, M ORCID: 0000-0002-2978-5222 (2017) Police culture, talk and action: narratives in ethnographic data European Journal of Policing Studies, 5. pp. 52-68.

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Abstract

The idea of police culture is almost as old as the field of police studies itself, and has been traced to the coincidence of concerns about violent and discriminatory police conduct with shifts in intellectual fashion, including a turn towards ethnography. This article considers some criticisms of the idea of police culture before engaging with a recent narrative turn in analysis. Drawing on fieldnotes from an ongoing ethnographic study of police in England it explores the use of a narrative approach to fieldnotes. The article concludes that extending the narrative approach to police work in this way shows significant potential for developing our understanding of why police behave as they do. Ethnography alone can provide the kinds of unique insights into overlapping and interconnected narratives that help to situate and order the particularities of police work in relation to the broader social and political context.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	police culture, Ethnography
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	13 Apr 2017 09:54
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 07:06
Related Websites:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3006979
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