Police ethnography, abolition, Rancière and political theology

Abstract

I want to express my gratitude to Caroline Parker, Jeffrey Martin, Michael Farquhar, and Stefano Portelli for taking the time to read and engage with my work. Their thought-provoking comments will stay with me as I continue to write and reflect on topics related to the anthropology of policing, the ethical and methodological challenges posed by police ethnographies, world-building and abolitionist practices among the oppressed, and the role of the spectral in resistance. I am delighted to learn that my analysis of policing and resistance resonates with urban contexts in Latin America, Italy, Spain, and Morocco. Although there is growing literature on the global nature of policing (Bradford et al., 2016; Go, 2023; Machold, 2024; Schrader, 2019), I believe there is a need for comprehensive global comparative ethnographies that explore both policing and abolitionist practices. I sincerely hope that Police, Provocation, Politics will contribute to fostering a comparative anthropological dialogue on policing which is not limited to the police institution and on world-building resistance practices rooted in long histories of defiance across both the Global North and South. In this limited space, I will concentrate on three key points highlighted by the reviewers in their insightful questions and comments: (a) the methodological implications of decentring the police as ethnographic protagonists; (b) the potentials and limitations of the Rancièrian perspective in anthropological approaches to policing; and (c) the martyr and the political theology of resistance.