David Sausdal
Associate professor | Associate senior lecturer
Pleasures of policing : An additional analysis of xenophobia
Author
Summary, in English
In police research, dominant explanations of why law enforcers harbour xenophobic attitudes are most often dressed in cultural or political rationalizations. Based on an ethnographic study of Danish police detectives and their noticeable negativity towards foreign suspects, this article offers an additional explanation of xenophobia. It demonstrates how resentments are spurred not only by cultural prejudice or politics but also by the ways in which foreigners complicate quite ordinary yet, from a police perspective, valued work practices. Following this ethnographic observation, the article ultimately constitutes a call for a better grounding of our criminological theories in the wider context of the workday situations and sensibilities of law enforcement.
Publishing year
2018-05-01
Language
English
Pages
226-242
Publication/Series
Theoretical Criminology
Volume
22
Issue
2
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Topic
- Sociology
Keywords
- Criminological theory
- emotions
- ethnography
- everyday life
- methodology
- policing
- xenophobia
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1362-4806