description of a police intervention puts into perspective my own actions,
which subsequently will be discussed.
The shift is going well, the two police officers I accompany are on duty for 8 hours
(hence, so am I). Until now, each intervention has been handled easily. At one point,
the police officers are asked to accompany some colleagues who would rather not carry
out on their own a mission that has been assigned to them: a fight between a young
woman and a young man both in their twenties. At the entrance of the building where
the young couple lives, the two police officers meet up with the other patrol made up of
a man and a woman. The policewoman deals with the young woman while the three
policemen approach the young man. From the very start, this intervention looks as
though it is going to be rough. While the young man is restless, speaking loudly, visibly
agitated, the police officers focus their attention on what he is saying; they speak softly
and make non-threatening gestures. One police officer holds the hand of the young
man to calm him down, but the young man snaps back his hand. From the start, the
police appear to offer signs of empathy. A few minutes later, in the couple’s flat,
the officers are still talking with the young man, who is very touched and is crying. The
police officers calm him down. The young woman enters the flat with the policewoman.
She wishes to get her things and then go back to her parents’ house. At that moment
the man’s anger flares up again. He starts talking loudly again and acts as though he is
going to come near her. The police officers grab him immediately. He is immobilized on
the couch, lying flat on his stomach, thanks to a technique that pins down the suspect’s
neck and arms, and then he is handcuffed. Witnessing this, the young woman puts
down the things she was collecting and comes near her partner who is being held down
by the police officers; she is visibly very worried and saddened.At this exact moment I address the woman in a strict tone, I might even have been speak-
ing loudly, and I tell her in broken Dutch to resume collecting her things. She hesitates
again, and with the same strict tone I speak to her again “What do you want?” (“Wat wil
je?”). The female police officer helps her pack up her things. They eventually leave the flat.The last few lines of the excerpt illustrate how, faced with this specific
situation of police intervention, my engagement as researcher took on a
new form. In the field, I inevitably “moved to action” at one point or
another whether by refraining or participating. “[The question of] engage-
ment is no longer a theoretical and abstract problem. It arises and indeed
imposes itself practically, in situations directly experienced by the research-
ers to which they are personally confronted here and now, to which they
have to react in one way or another: whether by fleeing, active participa-
tion, or any other behavior that seems to them desirable or indeed inevita-
ble” (Morelle & Ripoli, 2009,p. 159). Any alteration in my behavior must
be questioned. In the case at hand, how might this change of position be
interpreted? My action seems to share similarities with that of the observed
actors (resorting to an authoritative tone, adopting a dominant posture,
etc.) but is it indeed the case? Is this change a sign of flexibility in the choice
52 CAROLINE DE MAN