A ‘fair cop’: Queer histories,affect and police image work in Pride March

Abstract

This article investigates how proactive police image work contends with the politics of queer history by drawing from aspects of affect theory. It asks: How does police image work engage with or respond to ongoing histories of state violence and queer resistance? And why does this matter? To explore these questions, the article provides a case study of the Victorian Pride March in 2002. It analyzes textual representations of Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon’s participation in the parade to show how histories of homophobic police violence can be used strategically to fortify a positive police image among LGBT people and the wider community. Police image work carried out at Pride March becomes a means of legitimizing past policing practices with the aim of overcoming poor and antagonistic LGBT-police relations. The visibility of police at Pride March, this analysis suggests, contributes to the normalization of queerness as a site to be continually policed and regulated. Image work here also buttresses police reputation against the negative press associated with incidents of police brutality. This investigation contributes to the literature on police communications and impression management by demonstrating how police can mobilize negative aspects of their organizational history as an important part of police image work in the present.

Keywords

Affect gay pride legitimacy police image queer history

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