Sentiment, Reason, and Law

P olice violence emerged into global headlines in May 2020 after African- American George Floyd died under the knees of a white police officer in Minneapolis. Protestors against police brutality and racism took to the streets, even as far away as Taipei. I grew up in an African-American neighbourhood, so my formative years taught me to fear the police and associate them with violence. When I went to Taiwan as an anthropologist, I was struck by the lack of police patrols, and I was surprised by the relaxed way civilians socialized with officers in police stations over tea. Mystified, I thought such civility merited ethnographic inquiry, and Jeffrey T. Martin took on that job, over eight years of meticulous research in Taipei

China · Geography · Political science · Sociology · International Law and Human Rights · Law · Law, Rights, and Freedoms · Philosophy · Policing Practices and Perceptions