TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the construction and everyday maintenance of racialized psychological borders in the Greenlandic Police Force reproduce a postcolonial hierarchy of knowledge, where Danish knowledge and perceptions of professionalism are constructed as superior to Greenlandic knowledge and perceptions of professionalism.Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on an ethnographic study comprising 5 days of observation of a training course for Danish police officers going to Greenland on summer assistance, 13 days of observation of police work in Greenland, 2 days of participatory observation of a leadership development seminar in Greenland, 26 interviews conducted in Denmark and Greenland with both Danish and Greenlandic officers and interventions in Denmark and Greenland.Findings The racialized borders create strong perceptions of “us” and “them”, which are maintained and reinforced through everyday work practices. The borders have damaging effects on the way police officers collaborate in Greenland and as the borders are maintained through (often implicit) everyday micro-processes, management has difficulty dealing with it. However, the way the racialized borders became visible through this research project created an awareness of – and sparked conversation about – the colonial stereotypes that have constructed and reinforce the borders. This awareness opens up possibilities of collaborative disruption of those borders.Research limitations/implications The paper shows how racialized borders limit the way professionalism is understood in the Greenlandic Police Force. But it also shows that, because these borders are socially constructed, they can be contested. Making the implicit everyday discrimination explicit through vignettes, for example, offers the chance to contest and disrupt the colonial hierarchy otherwise deeply embedded in the work practices of the police force.Originality/value Thanks to unique access to Greenland’s police force, this paper offers exclusive in-depth insights into current processes of racialization and colonialization in a contemporary colonial relationship.
VL  - 41
IS  - 7
SN  - 2040-7149
DO  - 10.1108/EDI-01-2018-0018
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-01-2018-0018
AU  - Holck Lotte
AU  - Muhr Sara Louise
PY  - 2019
Y1  - 2019/01/01
TI  - From institutionalized othering to disruptive collaboration: A postcolonial analysis of the police force in Greenland
T2  - Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 993
EP  - 1013
Y2  - 2024/09/18
ER  -