Doctoral Dissertation Research: Police Technology and Urban Governance

本论文的研究项目是探索技术在城市警务中的作用。人类学博士生艾略特·刘将在纽约市立大学研究生中心杰夫·马斯科夫斯基博士的指导下，研究技术和政府关系的安排，通过这些安排，可以产生关于无序、犯罪、空间、地点和其他社会特征的知识。今天，技术不仅为警察巡逻和调查活动提供信息，而且还为警察机构和城市政府的使命、有效性和合法性进行更广泛的讨论。然而，对于警察部门产生的空间、人口和统计知识的使用情况、这些知识在其他管理机构中的传播和影响，以及这种情况随着时间的推移发生了怎样的变化，知之甚少。这项研究将在纽约市进行。这位研究人员将在他的调查中结合档案和民族志方法。他将在目前针对城市干预的四个选区的公众会议和与警察的骑行中进行参与者观察。他还将就过去的技术使用情况与前警察局官员和文职雇员进行访谈和焦点小组。最后，他将在档案研究的背景下评估这些数据，追溯警察技术的发展，从20世纪50年代的数据处理自动化到目前正在发展的分析驱动的警察模型。这项研究的发现将拓宽对技术在塑造警察实践和公众对警察、安全和城市治理的看法方面的作用的洞察力。结论将通过将行为者网络理论和技术政治学的工作扩展到城市治理和空间管理的研究来推动人类学理论的发展。

This dissertation research project explores the role of technology in urban policing. Anthropology doctoral student, Elliott Liu, under the supervision of Dr. Jeff Maskovsky at the City University of New York Graduate Center, will study the arrangement of technical and governmental relationships through which knowledge about disorder, crime, space, place and other social characteristics are produced. Today technology not only informs police patrol and investigative activities, but also broader discussions of the mission, effectiveness, and legitimacy of police institutions and city governments. Yet not enough is known about the use of the spatial, demographic and statistical knowledge produced by police departments, the circulation and effects of this knowledge in other governing institutions, and how this has changed over time. The research will be undertaken in New York city. The researcher will combine archival and ethnographic methods in his investigation. He will undertake participant observation at public meetings and ride-alongs with officers in four precincts currently targeted for city intervention. He also will conduct interviews and focus groups with former police department officers and civilian employees about past technology use. Finally, he will evaluate these data against the backdrop of archival research tracing the development of police technologies from the automation of data processing in the 1950s to the analytics-driven policing model developing currently. Findings from this research will broaden insights into the role of technology in shaping police practices and public perception of police, safety, and urban governance. Conclusions will advance anthropological theory by extending work on actor-network theory and techno-politics to the study of urban governance and spatial management.