Police ethnography, abolition, Rancière and political theology

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. The anthropology of police and policing has grown steadily over the past two decades (Clarke & Hornberger, 2023; Fassin, 2017; Garriott, 2013; Karpiak & Garriott, 2018; Martin, 2018), with a renewed wave of attention sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement. The BLM movement has not only prompted reflection on police violence against Black folks in the United States (Burton, 2015; Mutsaers et al., 2015; Ralph, 2020a, 2020b; Taylor, 2013), but has also opened new avenues for critical approaches to policing and racism beyond the United States (Alves, 2018, 2021; Byler, 2023; Haynes, 2023; Ibrahim, 2021; Korvensyrjä, 2024; Yonucu & Parker, 2023). Moreover, recent conversations on decoloniality and abolition have urged anthropologists—both those studying the police and beyond—to critically reflect on their methodological tools and their potential contribution, whether intentional or unintentional, to systems of oppression (Alves, 2021; Cox, 2022; Glück, 2024; Scott, 2022; Shange, 2022). While the anthropology of police and policing has traditionally centred on the police as the main protagonists in ethnographic research (Fassin, 2013, 2019; Jauregui, 2019; Martin, 2019), recently anthropologists and other ethnographers have increasingly addressed the ethical and practical challenges of conducting research with and among police forces (Alves, 2021; Jauregui, 2013; LeBrón, 2019). The issues raised by these challenges are especially critical for ethnographers who engage and align with communities targeted by the police. In contributing to this new wave of critique, I hope Police, Provocation, Politics serves as an example of how to study the police while maintaining a deliberate distance from them and challenging or refusing to engage with the frameworks they create. This is by no means intended to devalue the important critical insights that have emerged from ethnographies where the police were the main protagonists. I suggest, instead, that ethnographic research provides various ways to understand the police, allowing us to study them while maintaining a critical distance. As I demonstrate below, there are several reasons why ethnographers might choose to maintain a deliberate distance from the police while analyzing police and policing. I am honored that Portelli characterizes my work in his review as “militant ethnography,” “one that provides evidence for a radically counter-hegemonic interpretation of institutions, deliberately positioned on the side of those who challenge them.” Militant ethnography aligns with Jamie A. Alves' (2021) call for an “insurgent anthropology,” which advocates for anthropologists to “work against the police, not with them” (106). The rationale for working against the police is evident for those anthropologists who do not believe in the promises of institutions like the police, whose central role in maintaining various forms of oppression is now well-documented (Davis et al., 2022; Neocleous, 2021; Seigel, 2018). So, I will not take the time to explain here why working against the police is a necessary stance I believe we need to take. Not working with the police in my work, as noted by the contributors to this book forum (Parker, Portelli, and Martin), involves multiple dimensions. This includes not only avoiding interviews with the police, but also being cautious of the frames established by the police and the broader bureaucratic systems they are a part of. As I explain in Police, Provocation, Politics, anthropological research, with its problematic history, continues to be used against actually or potentially rebellious communities. Counterinsurgency, as is argued by its theorists, involves a culture-centric form of warfare that leverages anthropological research and insights. While conducting research with communities targeted by the police, engaging in relationships with the police could place both community members and researchers in a difficult position, especially in places where pervasive and manipulative surveillance is a significant component of policing dissent and racialized communities. Moreover, an anthropologist working with both the police and community members not only diminishes their trustworthiness in the eyes of the community (see also Alves, 2018) but may also be perceived as a potential police collaborator or spy, thereby contributing to the atmosphere of distress and fear created by surveillance. One reason I distanced myself from the police was my alignment with the community and my refusal to participate in its policing, either directly or indirectly. There are also other factors to consider: Anthropologists' various privileges and vulnerabilities, including their gender, racial and class identities, political stance, and citizenship status, may make them either targets of police violence and harassment or provide them with the privilege of conducting research safely among the police. Not all ethnographers hold similar positions within imperial, gender, racial, and class hierarchies, so they are not all perceived the same way by the police in their research locations, nor do they receive the same level of protection (see also Alves, 2021; LeBrón, 2019). Moreover, as Didier Fassin (2013) points out, the police's effort to suppress criticism makes conducting ethnographic research on them exceptionally challenging. In discussions with colleagues in France, I often heard that the French police had repeatedly rejected their requests to conduct ethnographic research among them due to their discontent with Fassin's critical work. While critical police ethnographies can have such effects, this should not deter us, as anthropologists, from exploring new ethnographic avenues for gaining insights into policing. The expanding ethnographic literature on policing reveals that police and policing can also be understood by centring the experiences and perspectives of those who are policed (Alves, 2021; LeBrón, 2019; Ralph, 2020a, 2020b; Yonucu, 2022). As Portelli, an urban anthropologist with decades of experience working with dispossessed and activist communities, notes in his review in this book forum, these communities, often targeted by the police, possess a deep awareness of policing techniques. I am pleased to see that certain covert policing methods discussed in my book reflect the experiences of these communities. We should never underestimate the insights that those who are policed can offer about the police. For anthropologists dedicated to learning from the traditions of the oppressed, centring the voices of those who are policed not only reveals the practical realities of policing but also allows us to learn from the resistance that has emerged in response. Martin claims that there is little information in my book about the organization of police bureaucracy, its relation to central and localized administrative bodies and the municipal politics of Istanbul. He adds that “anyone who has taken a vocational course on the administration of justice knows that such boring technicalities are the primary content of professional knowledge.” In my view, not working with the police necessitates being “wary of the stories that the law and its enforcers tell about themselves” (LeBrón, 2019, p.17). Instead of focusing on the official narratives concerning the police and their interactions with other bureaucratic entities, my book provides an alternative perspective on these narratives. For example, I illustrate how the architects of the state of emergency in Northern Kurdistan (Southeast Turkey), including the chief police officer and government-appointed mayor of the region, were later assigned to Istanbul as anti-colonial resistance began to gain significant support there. This illustrates how policing techniques are transferred from colony to the metropole, not only turning specific areas of Istanbul into unofficial state of emergency zones but also, more crucially, laying the foundation for manipulative and divisive policing practices influenced by global counterinsurgency strategies, including British counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland. I also examine how anti-terror laws, which allowed the police to operate without restrictions, expanded their authority and profoundly influenced neighborhood-level activism (see also Yonucu, 2018a, 2018b). Additionally, I demonstrate how contemporary urban policing in Istanbul is influenced by a military logic that Turkish military officers acquired from US warfare schools, highlighting the deep yet unofficial entanglements between the police and the military. These are not documented in the texts in which “boring technicalities” were written, they are rather hidden. In Police, Provocation, Politics, I am interested in the hidden transcripts of policing. Combining ethnography with thorough archival research enables us to uncover those transcripts. This does not mean that official narratives lack value. Anthropology teaches us that everything is a valid subject of inquiry. Yet, a crucial aspect of counterinsurgency involves ideological work that often entails muddying the waters. In other words, counterinsurgent policing frequently involves hidden dynamics, operating covertly and insidiously. By decentring the police in our ethnographic approach and adopting a radical disengagement, we can foster new ethnographic innovations and explore policing from alternative vantage points. Martin, in his review, questions the limitations of the Rancièrian approach to police and politics from a Brodeurian perspective. I find this debate to be intellectually stimulating and productive. As Martin, with reference to Brodeur, notes, “empirically existing forms of police” constitute an “expansive and eclectic assemblage.” However, within a Rancièrian framework, this assemblage is much larger and more entangled than Brodeur suggests. In this framework, policing is not confined to official bodies of governance and their allies; rather, it comprises a range of practices. Rancière's approach to policing allows us to move beyond actors and institutions, directing our attention instead to the practices that maintain an unjust social order. As I demonstrate in Police Provocation and Politics, those who are targeted by the police can, in practice, inadvertently serve the objectives of policing. A successful counterinsurgency, in fact, is one that has the ability to turn its targets into unwitting and yet effective agents of policing. This is why counterinsurgency invests in anthropology and is deeply influenced by colonial warfare and indirect rule. As I argue in the book, it is no coincidence, therefore, that many Turkish police officers study anthropology. For example, I demonstrate how Turkish police, by paving the way for armed, violent, and masculinist forms of revolutionary vigilantism, were able to transform certain segments of revolutionary vigilantes into de facto police (see also Yonucu, 2018b). Thus, instead of viewing military policing and extra-legal policing as distinct and separate, my work demonstrates how extra-legal policing—even by those who oppose and fight official police—can be integrated into broader policing practices, whether military or otherwise, through various affect generating security techniques. This is why I refer to certain forms of revolutionary vigilantism as mimetic policing in the book. From a Rancièrian perspective, I show that as long as these practices align with the objectives of policing, they are tolerated and even encouraged by the police, regardless of how their practitioners define themselves. Thus, the Rancièrean framework, which focuses on practices rather than actors, institutions, identities, or identifications, offers a valuable foundation for examining police and policing through their effects and practices when supported by ethnographic research. It also offers important insight into understanding resistance in relation to policing and vice a versa. As I demonstrate in the book, abolitionist, world-building practices that merge centuries old traditions developed by historically persecuted and racialized communities with socialist ideals for local direct self-governance have been primary targets of counterinsurgent policing in Turkey. Paying attention to which types of dissident activities are encouraged (armed and violent) and which are targeted (abolitionist and world building) in the urban context provides significant insights into the governmental aspects of policing and reveals how the police and the state perceive and operate. As I detailed in Police, Provocation, Politics and highlighted by Portelli in his review, the way the police target dissidents may seem counterintuitive. However, a Rancièrean framework, read through an anticolonial lens, helps us understand the underlying logic. While a Rancièrean perspective, supported by ethnographic research, can offer significant insights into policing, world-building, and abolitionist practices, it is not without its limitations. As discussed in the book, social relations are far more complex and entangled than a binary opposition can disclose. Ethnography reveals these nuanced and intricate gray areas. Furthermore, as Sparks (2016) contends, Rancière's disengagement with insights from anti-racist, anticolonial and feminist critique limits his analysis of policing and politics. However, the Rancièrean framework, despite Rancière's own limitations, provides us—through ethnographic research—with new avenues for exploration. For example, Rancière pays little attention to racism. But a Rancièrean framework helps us understand how racism aids policing. I would even suggest that racism is a form of policing. Farquhar's review focuses on the role of the martyr within the political theology of resistance. I am pleased to see that Farquhar recognizes the comparative value of my psychoanalytic approach to martyrdom, inspired by Avery Gordon's theory of haunting, and appreciates my effort to extend the concept beyond religious contexts. I share his concerns about the fetishization of martyrdom as an Islamist concept and hope that my characterization of martyrs as spirits contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the diverse forms of the spectral and their roles in resistance. I must admit that in the early years of my research, I dismissed discussions on martyrdom, believing it to be solely a religious concept. Many community members I worked with were socialists and atheists, and their use of the term—one that has also been co-opted by nationalist ideologies—perplexed me. This single word, “martyr,” was enough for me to form a judgment and overlook what I now recognize as a matter of profound anthropological significance. Anthropology highlights the importance of listening intently to our interlocutors, setting aside preconceptions, and delving beyond surface meanings. It underscores the vast diversity of human perspectives and the multi-layered and complex interpretations communities assign to words (Geertz, 1973). Furthermore, anthropology encourages us to take the immaterial realm seriously by exploring the magical and spiritual dimensions that shape human experience and taking the spectral into account (Good, 2019; Johnson, 2014; Navaro-Yashin, 2012). In the later years of my research, I realized that there are diverse interpretations of martyrdom and that there are various types of martyrs. In the context I analyze in the book, martyrs are individuals who lost their lives due to state violence, whether while they were actively resisting it or becoming victims of it. As I understand now, martyrdom, while present in religion, does not necessarily designate a religious figure; rather, it refers to a figure that has also been incorporated into religious contexts. If you belong to a persecuted community that has endured various forms of state and state-sanctioned civilian violence, including genocides, massacres, and racist lynching, your life and existence are permeated by specters of the deceased, who plead not to be forgotten. How could one allow a loved one or community members, who were killed in a genocide, a racist attack, or tortured to death by the police, to die? In the neighborhoods where I conducted my fieldwork, in every household there was more than one family member who had lost their lives as a result of state violence. There were mothers, fathers, siblings, aunts, and uncles who fell victim to either direct actions by state security forces or state-sanctioned Islamist or fascist attacks. As one of my interlocutors, invoking the words of Poet Edip Cansever while discussing deaths of his relatives at the hands of the police, asked “How could you call them dead?” Kurdish politician Türkan Elçi, shortly after the murder of her husband Tahir Elçi, a prominent Kurdish human rights lawyer, said “There is no state power behind us […]; there is the voice of the dead people who constantly walk along with us, that's all.” The dead, the martyrs, are walking along my interlocutors, talking to them. As I called them in the book, they are the spirits of resistance. They ask not only to be remembered but also for their resistance to be continued from where they left off (see also Yonucu, 2023). It was Avery Gordon's (2008) magical Marxism mixed with psychoanalysis which served as an initial catalyst for my understanding of how individuals who lost their lives due to state sanctioned violence and other injustices linger in our consciousness, reaching to with Many of my interlocutors, are and there is magical in their that not all dead people are dead and that are (see also 2014; 2023). As I demonstrate in my work, the of the is not only by oppression but also by resistance. who lost their lives those who continue to from these to take This is as Farquhar martyrs have historically a significant role in and anti-colonial I support his call for comparative to understand the role of the martyr in resistance beyond religious contexts. Combining comparative approaches with ethnographic research on martyrs will our understanding of the political of the dead and contribute to the of a political theology of resistance that seriously the I am deeply to the of & and the for their in this book Many to Caroline Parker, Jeffrey Martin, Michael Farquhar, and Stefano Portelli for their time to read and engage with my work. are deeply I would also like to extend my to for me to critically engage with Rancière and to his binary perspective on politics and policing.