Karen Lumsden

• PhD in Sociology
• Senior Lecturer in Sociology at University of Aberdeen

This article discusses the changing role of policing in an era of austerity from the perspective of frontline civilian police staff (call handlers and dispatchers) in a force control room (FCR). It draws on a symbolic interactionist framework and the concept of emotional labour (Hochschild 1979; 1983[2012]) in order to explore the emotional respons...

This article examines Eastern European migrants' experiences of and responses to hate crime. Following the UK European Union Membership Referendum ('Brexit' vote) there was an increase in reported hate crimes against immigrants. The study focuses on the experiences of migrants in Lincolnshire, a region of England which has a significant migrant pop...

This article explores the riskwork engaged in by call handlers, dispatchers and response officers in a police force control room in England. We present a novel approach by drawing on the work of Foucault and his concept le dispositif to study riskwork in policing in a post-austerity landscape and to develop the analytical concept of 'precautionary...

This book explores the discrimination encountered and propagated by individuals in online environments. The editors develop the concept of 'online othering' as a tool through which to analyse and make sense of the myriad toxic and harmful behaviours which are being created through, or perpetuated via, the use of communication-technologies such as t...

I present a performative autoethnographic account of career progression in academia in the UK higher education context. The chapter reconnects privatised notions of feelings (of inadequacy) to the public presentation of an academic self (which aligns with and bolsters the imperatives of the neoliberal academy). I take the reader on a journey throug...

Police organisations have been slow with regards to the integration of services which are accessible and responsive to the needs of D/deaf citizens. This qualitative study explored the barriers which D/deaf citizens face when accessing police. It considered the impact of police initiatives designed to widen the avenues through which D/deaf people c...

This article presents an in-depth analysis of women’s experiences of sexual harassment in public transport based on 29 qualitative interviews with victims on the London Underground. The article draws on mobility studies to develop an innovative theoretical framework and identifies three key features of experiences of sexual harassment in this space...

This concluding chapter sketches out the concept of ‘online othering’ in more detail, discussing its use as a conceptual tool, and outlining the relationship between global politics, culture and digital technologies in the facilitation of ‘online othering’. It highlights how ‘online othering’ is patriarchal, but also involves intersectionalities wi...

This chapter provides an overview of the rapidly changing social and political context which is driving a contested social media landscape and explores examples of othering and discrimination propagated and encountered by individuals online and in social media contexts and cultures. After providing an overview of literature on ‘othering’, we outlin...

This chapter explores police officers’ responses to reports of interpersonal cybercrime by considering their construction of the ‘ideal victim’. It contributes to knowledge on police officers’ perceptions of cybercrime and their support for victims. The discussion draws on Nils Christie’s (1986) concept of the ‘ideal victim’ to explore which indivi...

This chapter discusses teenage boys’ use of ‘banter’ on social networking sites such as Facebook by presenting data collected via semi-structured interviews and focus groups with boys and girls aged 11-16 from schools in England. Banter is a common form of social interaction within peer groups and is a means of othering and of performing and constr...

This chapter adds to the growing body of literature on online misogyny and studies of Reddit by focusing on an online culture which perpetrates and encourages forms of ‘online othering’, including misogyny and violence. It focuses on Men’s Rights Activists’ (MRA) discussions of trolling and gendered violence, and their online othering of ‘outsiders...

Victimization from cybercrime has increased exponentially over the past decade. Frontline police officers are dealing with a variety of crimes different than those existing in an era before the advent of digital technology. Frontline officers are expected to encourage members of the public to report such crimes, to investigate them, as well as keep...

Trolling is often enacted against women and minority groups on social media platforms, such as Twitter, as a means of limiting or undermining participation in virtual space(s). This chapter considers trolling as a form of gendered and symbolic violence. Drawing on an analysis of British national newspaper reports focusing on cases of trolling, we d...

This article focuses on police officers’ views of the professionalisation of policing in England against a backdrop of government reforms to policing via establishment of the College of Policing, evidence-based policing and a period of austerity. Police officers view professionalisation as linked to: top-down government reforms; education and recru...

This article develops a new framework for analysing digital media use and access by drawing on the concepts of ‘rhythm’ and ‘wayfaring.’ It unravels how young people with physical disabilities move in and between digital media devices, online sites and activities in an embodied and rhythmic way that happens at a fast or slow pace. The framework is...

This article draws on British newspaper reports in order to demonstrate that trolling, and the media's subsequent framing of trolling, involves " silencing strategies ". It is important to examine how trolling is discussed within the media to understand how it might frame public opinion, debate and action, and implicitly victim blame. The article p...

This paper reflects on an enterprise project which aimed to build partnerships with police forces in England. In attempting to do ‘public criminology’ we were confronted with power dynamics which had to be negotiated in relation to internal and external organizational cultures, public management, and ‘audit culture’. We focus on two levels of co-op...

Despite the pitfalls identified in previous critiques of the evidence-based practice (EBP) movement in education, health, medicine and social care, recent years have witnessed its spread to the realm of policing. This article considers the rise of evidence-based policy and practice as a dominant discourse in policing in the UK, and the implications...

This paper provides a contextual understanding of police officer and civilian staff receptivity to research and evidence-based policing (EBP) in England through presentation of findings from qualitative interviews. It focuses on: 1) how officers defined the concept of EBP; 2) the context driving these definitions (including political pressures, pro...

Partnerships between police and academics have proliferated in recent years, reflecting the increased recognition of the benefits to be had on both sides from collaborating on research, knowledge transfer and other activities. The literature on police–academic partnerships refer to inherent obstacles in bringing the ‘two worlds’ of research and pra...

The value of reflexivity is now largely accepted by qualitative researchers (Alvesson and Sköldberg 2011; Lumsden and Winter 2014), and has helped to address the sanitized nature of research accounts typically featured in methods textbooks. Although criminology has a less prominent legacy of producing ‘reflexive accounts’ than in sociology or anthr...

Historically, youths have presented challenges to the authorities via their appropriation of the automobile and related inversion of mainstream motoring values. Recently, this has been demonstrated in the contestation concerning boy racers in the UK and their engagement in deviant driving and car modification. Drawing on Elias’ civilizing process a...

Doing research with criminals or deviants has inspired much academic reflection, particularly in respect of the risks and dangers which researchers may face in these contexts, as well as the ethical, legal and moral dilemmas they provoke. This collection contributes to, advances and consolidates discussions of the range of methods and approaches in...

The discipline of criminology can and often does involve doing research for the powerful, those social control agents and organisations responsible for the creation and maintenance of definitions, labels and boundaries of crime and markers of criminality. According to Barbara Hudson (2000, 177), [o]f all the applied social sciences, criminology has...

Despite social researchers directing a great deal of attention to methodolog- ical and theoretical arguments relating to bias and partisanship, and the reflexive turn within the social sciences, explicit reflections of the opera- tion and experience of these in criminological research have been scarce. In a sense, partisanship is frequently present...

This article considers the policing of young drivers in Scotland who are known as boy racers. It outlines the ways in which the police addressed the problem of anti-social driving by youths in a built-up urban environment in the context of concern and pressure from businesses, residents, the local authority, media, and government. Policing practice...

This paper explores the contradictory framing of young women's social networking use in public and media discourses and situates it within current debates regarding the future of feminism for young women. While social networking activities began as relatively trivial, recently public and media concern has grown, especially in light of a so-called r...

This article grapples with the ethical dilemmas of youth research, and more specifically ‘edgework’, via an experiential account of fieldwork with ‘boy racers’ in Aberdeen, Scotland. ‘Edgework’ is ethically problematic for those who wish to conduct fieldwork with youths. By engaging in ‘edgework’, researchers can find themselves unwittingly drawn i...

This article explores the policing and regulation of young motorists known in the United Kingdom as ‘boy racers’. It demonstrates how police officers' definitional decisions in relation to driving behaviours were influenced by a range of exogenous and endogenous factors, which subsequently shaped the landscape of enforcement and interactions with t...

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 13th Feburary 2013. Laurie Taylor presents a special programme which pays tribute to the work and legacy of one of the most significant sociologists of our times, Stan Cohen. Cohen came up with the term 'moral panic' in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), referring to the media and social reaction...

On the public roads boy racers are a foreboding presence, viewed with suspicion and derision by the ‘respectable’ motorist. The problem of the young (male) driver is one which has plagued authorities and governments due to youths’ acclaimed propensity to engage in deviant and dangerous driving behaviours. Boy Racer Culture sheds light on the boy r...

This article contributes to debates regarding the issue of researcher partisanship and bias within social research and situates it within the current trend towards reflexivity. The discussion draws upon the researcher’s experiences of conducting fieldwork with the ‘boy racer’ culture and societal groups affected by their behaviour. In this instance...

Fuelled by media coverage of reckless, irresponsible and anti-social driving, young (male) motorists are an area of concern for politicians, police and citizens more generally. In media and popular discourses the symbol of the boy racer has come to represent deviance, anti-social behaviour, criminality and risk on the roads. This paper focuses on a...

This paper discusses female participation in the male-dominated \'boy racer\' culture. Little is known about girls who join male-dominated subcultures while studies of car cultures have tended to describe girls as peripheral participants and emphasise the link between the car and masculinity. Hence this paper provides an analysis of \'girl racers\'...

This article contributes to the reflexive turn within the social sciences by arguing for enhanced recognition of the role of gender and emotions in the research process. The chief instrument of research, the ethnographer herself, may alter that which is being studied and may be changed in turn (Golde, 1970). Women may trigger off specific behaviour...

This article addresses the failure of studies concerning moral panics to take into account the reaction of those individuals who are the subject of social anxiety. It responds to the suggestion by McRobbie and Thornton (1995) that studies of moral panic need to account for the role played by the \'folk devils\' themselves, for a moral panic is a co...