Monique Marks - Böcker

Bringing together a unique set of narratives from social scientists who have been situated in risky environments, this volume discusses the moral and ethical dilemmas of doing fieldwork in environments that are characterised by insecurity. These narratives are situated in the Global South, and the majority of the authors are themselves from the Global South, bringing both authenticity and originality to the scholarship in this book. Coming from the Global South can both facilitate and complicate navigating the complexity of doing research in places characterised by precariousness. The authors demonstrate how the ‘morality of the moment’ and indigenous sensibility is often more pertinent than formal ethical considerations as stipulated by universities and other institutions. The authors are refreshingly honest about their own identity dilemmas, their choices to exit the field prematurely, and the raw emotions that emerged in the process of doing fieldwork in these settings. This book is likely to be instructive to young researchers entering into fields that are risky, often with little instruction or supervision prior to doing so. It is also an excellent resource for more seasoned researchers who might have had comparable experiences and are keen to reflect on such research journeys. It will be an invaluable resource for teaching qualitative research across a wide spectrum of disciplines. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

What role can and should police unions and rank-and-file officers play in driving and shaping police reform? Police unions and their members are often viewed as obstructionist and conservative, not as change agents. But reform efforts are much more likely to succeed when they are supported by the rank-and-file, and line officers have knowledge, skills and insights that can be invaluable in promoting reform. Efforts to involve police unions and rank-and-file officers in police reform are less common than they should be, but they are increasing, and there is a good deal to learn about policing, police reform and participatory management from the efforts made to date. In this pioneering volume, an international, cross-disciplinary collection of scholars and police unionists address a range of neglected questions, both empirical and theoretical, about the place of police officers themselves in the process of reform – what it has been, and what it could be. They provide a fresh view of police reform as occurring from the bottom up rather than the top down. This book will be highly useful for practitioners and scholars who have a serious interest in the possibilities and limits of police organizational change. This book is based on special issues of Police Practice and Research and Policing and Society.

The idea of police occupational culture or cop culture has been a source of academic interest and debate since research into policing began in earnest in the 1960s. Police culture has become a lens through which a number of aspects of the police and policing more broadly have been studied, including the use of discretion, police corruption, institutional racism, sexism and police reform. For the most part, these studies have been done in topical isolation from each other and have focused rather narrowly on Anglo-American state policing forms. Using studies from Australia, Britain, the United States, Africa and Canada, this book offers a contemporary look at police culture from an international perspective by questioning established silos in topics, by presenting new ways of thinking about police culture and suggesting forms that police culture is likely to take in the future.In revisiting the meaning of police culture in the light of key developments in the field of policing, including the pluralization of policing governance and delivery, new management practices and the increased diversification and representation within police organizations, the chapters in this book offer both explanatory and normative approaches to the topic. The chapters also point to new topics in police cultural studies, such as the impact of tertiary education opportunities on police culture, police unions as counter-cultural groupings, the coming together of private and public policing cultures, and the impact of new identity groupings on police organizational culture.Students and researchers in police and policing studies, crime and criminal justice, as well as police practitioners themselves, should find this volume of the "Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance" series a particularly interesting read. It presents a timely reassessment of the new dimensions of police occupational culture Proposes a new schema for thinking and writing about policing culture. It considers aspects of the police occupational culture from an international perspective through including studies from Australia, Britain, the United States, Africa and Canada - one often neglected in Anglo-American research. It revisits the meaning of police culture in the light of key developments in the field of policing including the pluralization of policing governance and delivery; new management practices and the increased diversification and representation within police organizations.

Bringing together a unique set of narratives from social scientists who have been situated in risky environments, this volume discusses the moral and ethical dilemmas of doing fieldwork in environments that are characterised by insecurity. These narratives are situated in the Global South, and the majority of the authors are themselves from the Global South, bringing both authenticity and originality to the scholarship in this book. Coming from the Global South can both facilitate and complicate navigating the complexity of doing research in places characterised by precariousness. The authors demonstrate how the ‘morality of the moment’ and indigenous sensibility is often more pertinent than formal ethical considerations as stipulated by universities and other institutions. The authors are refreshingly honest about their own identity dilemmas, their choices to exit the field prematurely, and the raw emotions that emerged in the process of doing fieldwork in these settings. This book is likely to be instructive to young researchers entering into fields that are risky, often with little instruction or supervision prior to doing so. It is also an excellent resource for more seasoned researchers who might have had comparable experiences and are keen to reflect on such research journeys. It will be an invaluable resource for teaching qualitative research across a wide spectrum of disciplines. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

What role can and should police unions and rank-and-file officers play in driving and shaping police reform? Police unions and their members are often viewed as obstructionist and conservative, not as change agents. But reform efforts are much more likely to succeed when they are supported by the rank-and-file, and line officers have knowledge, skills and insights that can be invaluable in promoting reform. Efforts to involve police unions and rank-and-file officers in police reform are less common than they should be, but they are increasing, and there is a good deal to learn about policing, police reform and participatory management from the efforts made to date. In this pioneering volume, an international, cross-disciplinary collection of scholars and police unionists address a range of neglected questions, both empirical and theoretical, about the place of police officers themselves in the process of reform – what it has been, and what it could be. They provide a fresh view of police reform as occurring from the bottom up rather than the top down. This book will be highly useful for practitioners and scholars who have a serious interest in the possibilities and limits of police organizational change. This book is based on special issues of Police Practice and Research and Policing and Society.

Much has been written about South Africa‘s ‘lost generation’ – the generation of politicised youth who dedicated their lives to the liberation of a nation, and who ‘lost’ everything in the process. Young Warriors is about this generation, but it is also a critique of the very concept of ‘lost generation’. While focussing on the lives of the men and women who lived in Diepkloof, a black township in South Africa, it is a narrative of many young black South Africans who ‘grew up’ in the organisations of the ANC-led liberation movement. It is also the story of activists who became leaders, provincial premiers and national ministers in our democratic society. Through extensive interviews and time spent in Diepkloof, Monique Marks documents the tales of a group of Charterist youth during the mid-eighties to early nineties. During this period participating in the Charterist youth movement fundamentally shaped these individuals’ lives and the future of their society. Marks revisits their lives at the beginning of the third millennium in a new democratic South Africa characterised by a radical decline in this social movement.Marks explores, from the point of view of the youths themselves, how and why township youth joined mass-based political organisations and how, through their involvement in these organisations, their lives and identities were shaped in significant ways. She examines in fascinating detail how youth planned and executed acts of political violence, who participated in these acts, and what justifications they offered for their involvement in collective violence.The involvement of politicised youth in acts of collective violence has led to speculation as to whether or not former activist youth are responsible for the increase in violent crime in contemporary South Africa. Young Warriors provides some tentative answers to questions about youth and crime.