European Journal of Policing Studies
Article

Police culture, talk and action: narratives in ethnographic data
Keywords police culture, canteen culture, Ethnography, narrative analysis, police discretion
Authors Elizabeth Turner en Mike Rowe
DOI 10.5553/EJPS/2034760X2017005001005
Author's information

Elizabeth Turner
Dr Elizabeth (Liz) Turner is a lecturer in criminology at the University of Liverpool. Her research and writing focus on a range of issues, including democratic policing, public confidence in criminal justice and the public role of criminology. She has been engaged in the ethnographic study of policing since 2015 and is currently particularly interested in investigating the historical, political and practical significance of the concept of police discretion (corresp:lizt@liverpool.ac.uk).

Mike Rowe
Dr Mike Rowe is an academic with teaching and research interests in all things public service at the University of Liverpool. His current research is a long-term ethnographic study of discretion in two police forces, observing uniformed officers in the course of their duties. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Organizational Ethnography and has been involved in organising an annual Ethnography Symposium for the past twelve years.

  • 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.

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