Pleasures of policing: An additional analysis of xenophobia

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  • David Sausdal
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.
Original languageEnglish
JournalTheoretical Criminology
Volume22
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)226-242
ISSN1362-4806
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

    Research areas

  • Faculty of Social Sciences - Criminological theory, emotions, ethnography, everyday life, methodology, policing, xenophobia

ID: 201686831