Getting to the Frontiers: Methodologies

Abstract

This chapter discusses the methodologies developed to accomplish the travel to policing and security frontiers. It considers elements of qualitative research on policing and security agents on frontiers of thinking and practice. This includes freedom of information (FOI) requests, which are a cutting-edge method and thus befitting research on frontiers. The chapter then looks at common barriers encountered on the way to frontiers. While it is often assumed that policing and security agencies and agents, including those working on frontiers, are difficult to access due to their bureaucratic, secretive, or obscure nature, this is not necessarily the case. Yet, getting to the frontiers of policing and security is not without pitfalls. These pitfalls are like falling into risk categories — ironically like those sometimes used by policing and security agents in their own work.