“It’s almost the 14th of February [Valentine’s Day] so I thought of you”: The Role of Positionality in Navigating Field Relations during a Police Ethnography

“It’s almost the 14th of February [Valentine’s Day] so I thought of you”: The Role of Positionality in Navigating Field Relations during a Police Ethnography Positionality, along with reflexivity, is a key component of ethnographic research. Traditional male-oriented police ethnographic accounts, however, rarely include a reflection on how researchers’ positionality shaped the research process. While a growing number of female police scholars reflect on gendered power dynamics and strategies for managing trust or flirtatious behaviour, the literature is inconclusive regarding the tension between maintaining field relations characterized by trust while also maintaining a measure of invisibility. In this article, I examine how my positionality impacted the course of fieldwork during a long-term ethnography of the Dutch police. I discuss how my gender and former social work profession, in particular, challenged and provided a resolution through field relations while establishing (in)formal access and gathering data on violent interactions. Moreover, I reflect on the usefulness of Shakespeare’s concept of “confessions of ignorance” and Reyes’ “ethnographic toolkit” as strategies to navigate discomfort and build rapport. The article contributes to the field of policing studies by exploring how we can transform our inevitable differences from liabilities to valuable research assets, enhancing our understanding of the complexities involved in conducting ethnographic police research.