Ethnography of police ‘domestic abuse’ interventions: Ethico-methodological reflections

In this chapter, the author draws on her own sociological research into institutional responses to domestic violence in Switzerland. The emotions and affects evoked by such events can bring into focus a specific process of home (un)making, in which she was caught, and which presented a challenge to her as an ethnographer and an analyst. The author explores the possibility of an intimate ethnography of violence. She suggests that emotional commitments in ethnography are not only matters to attend to reflexively but also resources which open up the field as a space of encounter between affects. Domestic violence can be considered as a process of home-unmaking whose harm can be minimized by the police intervention, that may, in contrast, be considered as an attempt of home-remaking. In the case of author's research within the police corps, as a ‘formal organization’, further ethical considerations emerged around the formal requirement to adhere to police security regulations.