Affect: The Virtual Force of Policing (Taiwan)

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

The disconcerting story narrated by Jeffrey Martin about his early interactions with a high-ranking law enforcement official in Taiwan reveals a method of intimidation used to inculcate a lesson: the ethnographer experiences fear at the same time as he learns how social control works. Policing, he is made to understand, operates not only through the use of physical force but also via the resort to immaterial power. The interaction between the official and the ethnographer can thus be assimilated to a literal incorporation of empirical knowledge: it is through his body that the researcher profoundly grasps the cultural meaning of this idiosyncratic form of policing.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationWriting the World of Policing
Subtitle of host publicationThe Difference Ethnography Makes
EditorsDidier Fassin
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
Pages91-110
ISBN (Electronic)9780226497785
ISBN (Print)9780226497648, 9780226497501
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017

Keywords

  • ethnography
  • policing
  • Taiwan
  • power
  • intimidation

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