Tag Archives: Washington DC

Black Lives Matter Syllabus Project, Pedagogy

The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatter Syllabus, Week 26: Sameena Mulla on Missing Black Girls and Women

The editors of Anthropoliteia are happy to continue an ongoing series The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus Project, which will mobilize anthropological work as a pedagogical exercise addressing the confluence of race, policing and justice. You can see a growing bibliography of resources via our Mendeley feed.  In this post, Sameena Mulla notes contributions to the recent discussions about missing black girls (with thanks to Leslie Wingard).

SayHerNameIf you take anything away from this post, it should be to read Eve Dunbar’s article, “On Gwendolyn Brooks and Disappearing Black Girls.” Dunbar writes:

In Washington, DC, the city currently home to America’s least popular president ever, the mainstream media “broke” the story that a rash of black girls had gone missing. Social networking platforms circulated hashtags and headlines speculating the girls had been abducted and forced into sex work. Others worried the girls were dead. The police countered all theories by assuring local and national worriers that these missing black girls were merely runaways. Continue reading →

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Practicum

New Feature: Practicum– Applying Anthropology to the Study of Policing, Security, Crime and Criminal Justice Systems

Police Call Box, Washington, DC © Jennie Simpson 2014

Police Call Box, Washington, DC © Jennie Simpson 2014

Welcome to the new bimonthly feature, Practicum on Anthropoliteia! I am your host and will be guiding this journey into an exploration of the intersections of applied and practicing anthropology with the study of policing, security, crime, and criminal justice systems. Today’s column focuses on mapping out the unique niche of applied work in policing. Comments are welcome!

A year ago, I was asked by a former chief of police now active in policy and research to write a white paper mapping out what a “police anthropologist” might look like, replete with arguments on how anthropologists could contribute both to the study of policing and to police departments. I spent many hours reflecting on my own work with police agencies and imagining how I could translate anthropological aims and methods into work with police agencies. The result was a thoughtful exercise in outlining how anthropologists might be integrated into the world of policing, in which I argued:

Continue reading →

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Dossiers

Policing and “Safety in Numbers” in a Post-Panoptic Age

The editors of Anthropoliteia are pleased to welcome a special commentary from our own Kristin Castner.

Let’s face it: Americans are living in an age of extreme surveillance.  The government is listening to our phone calls, capable of controlling our computer cameras remotely and (perhaps) reading our Facebook messages.

Continue reading →

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In the Journals

Special Issue of Anthropology News features two articles on Police

Although there’s been quite a bit of rumbling over the AAA’s “open access” policies over the last several years, one positive development IMHO has been to move the association’s newsletter, Anthropology News, to an online and OA format.

Police propaganda billboard advertising goals for building a “Peaceful and Healthy Society.” This photograph was taken in Taiwan in the early 2000s. Photo courtesy Jeffrey T Martin

Police propaganda billboard advertising goals for building a “Peaceful and Healthy Society.” This photograph was taken in Taiwan in the early 2000s. Photo courtesy Jeffrey T Martin

And now readers of this blog can benefit.  The most recent issue features several articles on the Anthropology of Law in its “In Focus” section, including two articles on the anthropology of policing: one from Anthropoliteia’s own Jeff Martin, entitled “How the Law Matters to the Taiwanese Police” and another by Jennie Simpson, a recent PhD from American University, “Building the Anthropology of Policing” (the latter featuring a short–and unexpected cameo from yours truly).

Personally, I’m super-psyched that the anthropology of policing is beginning to carve out a space in the larger world of anthropology.  Not only am I currently brainstorming how to incorporate these blog posts into my course on Policing in Society, but I’m secretly formulating a response to Jeff arguing that his use of my beloved Max Weber is all wrong!

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