never show disagreement or disapproval toward a colleague. If a police
officer acts in a way that appears open to criticism, none of his colleagues
will say so in public. Therefore the apparent cohesion of the police officers
may give the public an impression of homogeneous police practices open to
criticism.
Faced with the complexity of all that makes up police practices, I do not
want to refute abusive police practices, but I feel it is necessary to try to
show a more balanced and differentiated perspective on police practices.
My comprehensive posture as a social researcher overlaps, not without
difficulties, with my status as a woman, a big sister, a partner, a mother,
and a friend.
But it is quite hard to discuss how to look at police practices with some
nuance when we are speaking with someone who has a very negative image
of police officers. “The exercise of explanation or indeed the mere descrip-
tion of the reality of police work and of the functioning of the services
often trigger a lack of understanding because they run into this common
knowledge, which for some leads to an idealization of the police officer, the
modern hero, who faces the rise of all violence alone, and which for others
leads to a demonization, the uniform being associated with blind repres-
sion, led by merciless beings. In this binary framework, the process of
understanding for both camps already signifies betrayal and choice of the
enemy camp” (Mouhanna, 2011,p.7).
It seemed to me that communication in the family scene was not “safe”
because of the emotional burden of relations between the police and the
population. I was afraid that by sharing my experiences, I would inade-
quately (unfairly) contribute to the construction or the consolidation of
representations of police officers. This is because my experiences were not
scientific analyses. I then developed a “controlled” discourse in order to
not subvert a thought that was not yet completed, in order to not “betray”
the field. My involvement in the family scene was thus also called into ques-
tion for the duration of the observation. This again illustrates the extent to
which I had the impression of being “subjected” to the field even when I
was outside it. “Leaving the site of investigation does not mean neutralizing
the risks of the profession” (Cefaı ̈& Amiraux, 2002) and it seems that these
risks have ramifications that also go beyond the sole context of data hand-
ling and the dissemination of findings.
Managing the borders between my scenes consisted in “censoring”
my field experiences when I was in the professional and family scenes.
These adjustments of position, distancing myself in scenes outside the field,
were experienced as being deprived of the opportunity to fully feel and
An Observation Situation: When the Researcher’s Scenes Interact 57