Policing Belonging: Race, Empire and Nation 

• In Event: Policing, Race and Communities in the UK

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the policing of migrant groups in the UK across time. Drawing on empirical research conducted in the UK, I ask, how is policing used as a tool by which to govern and question the presence of minority ethnic groups in the UK? What impacts does this have on notions of belonging, amongst South Asian migrant groups, in particular? By tracing the experience of Asians and their interactions with the police over the decades, this paper discusses how racialized hierarchies, empire and nationhood can be reconstituted through police practice - both symbolically and physically. The paper also asks, how is the policing of Asian groups informed by colonial notions of gender and race and do the same concerns arise in the policing of migrant groups considered 'other' across time and space?

Author

• Alpa Parmar, University of Oxford