Teaching
Cultural Anthropology
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Unit 7
Policing
Governments task police forces and other security units with the responsibility of maintaining order and control over civilian populations. In this unit, students will learn about policing in different countries around the world and observe the differences and similarities in law enforcements’ approaches and methods. They will also gain an understanding of how policing affects different communities and become familiar with how power, violence, and control are embodied and meted out by the institution and by individual officers. Students will study critiques of policing put forth by various scholars.
Sapiens articles
When Harmony Silences Resistance
The recent violence in Hong Kong has stunned the world, but one anthropologist sees a much less visible threat.
Combating Anti-Black Racism in Brazil and Beyond
An interview with anthropologist Christen A. Smith provides insights into resisting police violence and creating safe societies for people of African descent.
Keywords
View All in Race
![A gray-haired woman sits on an exam table in a light-filled doctor’s office and looks out a window.]()
![A black squirrel sits atop a trash can in a busy urban setting, with a crowd of people out-of-focus in the background.]()
![Two pairs of scissors, two rocks, and two slips of paper rest on a pale-yellow surface.]()
![A man with long, dark hair tied in a braid holds up a small child to a mirror, which reflects the child’s pensive face.]()
![A stylized painting of a person’s head—with wide eyes, red lips, and a headscarf—is covered in various numbers and symbols, and set against a black background.]()
![A silhouetted woman sits in a chair in the center of a dark room looking directly at the camera. Close-up images of another woman are projected onto screens on the three walls surrounding her.]()
Doctors Are Taught to Lie About Race
Decades ago, anthropologists dispelled the myth of biological race. Lagging behind in scientific understandings of human diversity, the medical profession is failing its oath to “do no harm.”
Are People Projecting Racist Stereotypes Onto Squirrels?
Researchers refute a popular idea that black-furred squirrels behave more aggressively than gray ones—and suggest the myth stems from some people’s racist attitudes.
Playing Rock, Paper, Scissors Across the Red-Blue Divide
As toxic polarization deepens in the U.S., some global conflict prevention experts are now addressing political violence at home. An anthropologist shares three key insights from a community action program in Wisconsin.
Finding Our Way Forward—by Remembering
In a personal essay, a mixed-race and Native anthropologist draws strength from his ancestors.
Grappling With Guilt Inside a System of Structural Violence
Criminals and Gangmembers Anonymous, a 12-step recovery program, has proliferated in California’s carceral system. An anthropologist investigates the program, which sees criminality as a chronic addiction that can be treated through intervention.
Spotlighting Black Women’s Mental Health Struggles
An anthropologist discusses her film that honors and grieves the loss of Kime, a friend who passed away after experiencing physical and state violence.
View All in Violence
![An image focuses on two hands of a statue in shadow coming together holding a white flower.]()
![A line of cattle travel across a dry desert landscape, kicking up dust.]()
![Two pairs of scissors, two rocks, and two slips of paper rest on a pale-yellow surface.]()
![Dozens of papers with text on them are punctured and strung horizontally on wires.]()
![A white cartoon speech bubble on a red background is wrapped in barbed wire.]()
![A person wearing a gray T-shirt and tan baseball cap pushes buttons on a camera that is attached to a tree in the forest.]()
Survival Notes
Black African women in former colonial centers such as London gesture to subversive ways of communicating with those imprisoned in archives across generations.
An Imagined Monograph for Nongqawuse
A 19th-century prophetess reportedly bore a serious message from the ancestors to her Xhosa people amid British colonial assault. The written archives judged her—but much still remains unknown and unacknowledged.
Playing Rock, Paper, Scissors Across the Red-Blue Divide
As toxic polarization deepens in the U.S., some global conflict prevention experts are now addressing political violence at home. An anthropologist shares three key insights from a community action program in Wisconsin.
Archived Haints
SAPIENS’ 2024 poet-in-residence conjures the voices of those imprisoned in archives.
Speaking Truth to Israel Requires More Than Academic Freedom
Educators and students critical of Israel’s war on Gaza face censorship, harassment, and dismissal. An anthropologist who researches coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians argues such critics need more than free speech protections.
Payangko, or Echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi)
After a 60-year haitus, an Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna was seen in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains. A poet-anthropologist reflects on the echidna’s message through the storied lens of the people of Yongsu Sapari.
View All in Power
![A person dressed in a red Santa Claus suit with white trim kneels on a military runway while speaking into a handheld radio. In the background are two rows of large military airplanes.]()
![A close-up image features two stained-orange hands holding a cluster of objects that look like small, orange strands.]()
![A person wearing a rust-colored hooded coat and a black face mask stands in front of a large facility while holding a red sign that reads: “It’s Been a Long Time Coming but I Know a Change Is Coming!”]()
![A woman’s legs and a man’s leg are shown against the backdrop of a stage where red, white, and blue colors are prominent. The man wears a black cowboy boot and black pants. The woman wears a cream-colored skirt and dark-blue high heels.]()
![Amid a crowd, a woman with dark auburn hair and a black jacket embraces a child who faces away from the camera and wears a jacket with blue cartoon monkeys on it.]()
![A person stands inside a moving flame of yellow light while sparks fly out in all directions. A second person stands on the left side holding an umbrella against the sparks.]()
Unwrapping Operation Christmas Drop
An anthropologist takes a critical eye to a long-running holiday tradition: a U.S. military mission that drops toys and supplies throughout Micronesia.
The Land of Dreams
In a dystopian short story, an anthropologist imagines an alternate world in which Kashmiris are forbidden to dream.
Inside Amazon’s Union-Busting Tactics
An anthropologist reports on the impediments to labor organizing—and why it’s still worth trying.
The Shortcomings of Height in Politics
Why is height a focal point for some politicians? An anthropologist explores the significance of height—explaining how cultural perceptions influence and distort political dynamics in the U.S.
Inside Russia’s Campaign to Steal and Indoctrinate Ukrainian Children
An anthropologist investigates an insidious side of Russia’s genocide against Ukrainians meant to shatter families: snatching children and occupying their minds.
A Call for Anthropological Poems of Resistance, Refusal, and Wayfinding
SAPIENS is seeking poetry submissions for a curated collection that will publish next year. Deadline: September 1, 2024.
Professor Talking Points
- Police forces exist in countries around the world and hold differing levels of power depending upon the type of government that presides over them.
- As an institution, the police are expected to protect, serve, and maintain order among civilian populations. Because of their mandate, any violence they use to achieve order is generally viewed as legitimate and supported by the state.
- Anthropologists study police and policing through a cultural lens, and focus on a number of salient topics: for example, power dynamics within police forces and between the police and the people they protect; the police as an arm of the state; population control; the historical roots of policing that are often linked to European colonialism and plantation slavery; and the role of class, race, sexuality, mental health, and gender as they affect police officers, and influence which communities are likely to be targets of policing.
- Anthropologists have also played important roles in ongoing conversations around police violence and solutions to it. Their research reveals that other approaches can be used to ensure safety and that the style of policing as currently conducted in many countries has not always existed. These scholars support different strategies and tactics to achieve security and safe societies: for example, community policing, building trust between civilians and the police, legal change, police reform, and abolition of police forces.
Academic Articles
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Beliso-De Jesús, Aisha. 2020. “The Jungle Academy: Molding White Supremacy in American Police Recruits.” American Anthropologist 122 (1): 143–156.
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Martin, Jeffrey T. 2018. “Police and Policing.” Annual Review of Anthropology 47 (1): 133–148.
Student Discussion Questions
- What social factors contribute to differing opinions about the police?
- What similarities and differences do you see, if any, across accounts of policing in different parts of the world?
- Does the concept of coerced harmony discussed in Lau’s SAPIENS article apply to other readings? If so, how?
- What does Smith say in the interview with SAPIENS about the results people can expect from diversifying the police force and how we might think of individual officers as opposed to the police as an institution? How does Smith’s perspective on these two issues differ from Gusterson’s argument in his SAPIENS column post?
- Why is it important to learn about the culture of police academies and training? Can this information give clues to how to improve policing?
- What alternatives to current forms of policing are mentioned in these articles? Which of them resonate with you and why?
Activities
- Have students write an op-ed about policing that responds to key arguments of the unit readings.
Additional Resources
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Article: Favian Alejandro Martín and Mona J. E. Danner’s “Elusive Justice: Tribal Police Officers’ Perception of Justice in an American Indian Community”
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Book: Laurence Ralph’s The Torture Letters: Reckoning With Police Violence
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Book: Savannah Shange’s Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Anti-Blackness, and Schooling in San Francisco
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Podcast: SAPIENS’ “Police Violence and the Pandemic”
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Podcast: The Conversation’s Pasha “Talking #EndSARS and the New Proposed Unit”
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Podcast: CANADALAND’s “Everybody Else is Abolishing the Police, So Why Can’t We?”
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Website: Movement for Black Lives’ Defund the Police page
Unit By
Eshe Lewis (2020)
Teaching
Cultural Anthropology
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Unit 8
Pandemics
