Suchergebnisse

What does it mean to be innovative in public organizations? Scholars and policy makers call for public sector organizations to become innovative, whether this is through increasing collaboration, exploring networks or recognizing the innovation that occurs in government. This study contributes to this discussion a critical perspective arguing that much of the innovation that occurs in public organizations may come about in ways that are intentionally silenced by the organization and therefore dependent on the tactical creation of space for everyday creativity. It does so through an 18-month ethnographic study informed by Foucault's concepts of governmentality and discourse, as well as his history of the emergence of police within the state, and by De Certeau's theory of everyday practice and metaphor of the city.

A current discussion about the role of research knowledge, particularly in Nordic police research, is concerned with research-funding collaborations being too entangled with political interests in documenting best-practices ("what works"), to maintain a trustworthy degree of critical and freely reflexive ethos. Whereas previous debaters find the solution to be one of researchers distancing themselves from their embeddedness with the police organisation they study in, we argue on the contrary that embedded, in-depth and close-up approaches are essential in producing rich enough knowledge from within the police to achieve critical and freely reflexive research-knowledge. In nuancing perspectives on the role and potential of embedded police researchers in contributing to knowledgeable policing, we suggest a framework for Embedded Police Research.