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Malin Åkerström

Malin Åkerström

Professor emerita

Malin Åkerström

Policing Migration: Described and Observed Cooperation Experiences of Police and Border Guards in the Baltic Sea Area

Author

  • Sophia Yakhlef
  • Goran Basic
  • Malin Åkerström

Summary, in English

“Collaboration” is generally portrayed as being beneficial to intelligence and operational police work, even if previous collaborative research shows that conflicts are common between authorities who are supposed to cooperate. The present study focuses on how officers collaborate in their day-to-day management of border guarding, taking into consideration the different social and cultural backgrounds of the project participants. To these ends, this qualitative, ethnographically study is based on empirical material gathered from interviews, field observation sessions with officers working at the Baltic Sea border agencies and documents. The findings suggest that, although collaboration is burdened with bureaucratic difficulties, there is a common understanding of purpose among the project participants. These border officers' common declared their objective is to fight criminality and create a safer Europe. However, the participants possessing different organizational and cultural backgrounds have to adapt to adopt a common language (in officers' terms EU-English), common schemes of categorizing (inside-outside distinctions), and develop a sense of trust and identity. Collaboration is claimed by the informants, and is best achieved through getting involved in everyday practices. They worked side by side, and spent free time together rather than following bureaucratic rules and regulations.

Department/s

  • Sociology

Publishing year

2017

Language

English

Pages

117-140

Publication/Series

Journal of Applied Security Research

Volume

12

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Routledge

Topic

  • Sociology

Keywords

  • border guards, policing borders, Baltic Sea area, policing migration, cooperation, European border politics, intelligence and operational police work, surveillance, collaboration, qualitative interviews, field work, field notes, collaboration identity

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1936-1610