Police beat: the emotional power of music in police work

Abstract

This book deals with the intersection(s) between music and emotion, and how police officers in a major Australian metropolitan police department draw on this intersection to wield subtle power over the policed community. As is indicated throughout this work, each of these arenas has been singularly the subject of anthropological attention. The intersection between the three has also been visited; Qureshi (2000), Adorno (1973) Stokes (1994) and Abu-Lughod (1990) to name but a few have explored the ways in which the musically affective, or the affectively musical, have been involved in the exercise of power. Anthropological forays into each of the three topic areas comprising the intersection I am interested in exploring in this book have created domains enriched by scholarly argument, by starkly opposing positions, and by rapidly growing bodies of literature.