Meanings and Understandings of security among (local) police officers in relation to refugees

The past years have seen a grown interest in the role cities play in the field of migration, both in academic writing as well as in civil society discourse. Starting with the “long summer of migration” (Hess et al. 2017), the local scopes of actions have become more evident and researched (Schammann 2020). According to this “local turn”, the local level does not merely execute national or federal migration policy but can have its own impact facilitated by local actors or street-level bureaucrats on how refugees arrive and how they have access to areas of life and work. Older Studies on the leeway of street-level bureaucrats in foreigner offices, for instance, have been conducted by Ellermann (2005) and Eule (2014). At the same time, a research gap on the power of the state-organised police as further street-level bureaucrats in refugee-specific issues can be noted. In the main discourse of the majorly white society, refugees are perceived as a threat, and the police have the task of maintaining internal security. Moreover, policing is always accompanied by a targeted control of certain groups of the population as well as a criminalisation of those who are considered to deviate from the norm, such as refugees (El-Tayeb/Thompson 2019: 313). Consequently, security and order for some means insecurity and threat for others (Thompson 2018: 202; Loick 2018: 28f.). In this respect, policing cannot be viewed in isolation from social discourses and the meaning of (in-)security depends on the social position in society. Subsequently, with a focus on the local police institution, the understanding of (in-)security by the police will be analysed and understood in the context of this paper. However, the main focus of the dissertation will be put on the need and/or meaning of (in-)security for refugees living in camps. Drawing from a DFG funded research project “Police, Politics, Polis - Dealing with Refugees in the City” (started January 2021), I examine the understanding of security from both actors: refugees and local police in German cities. For the sake of this paper I attempt to respond to the following questions as one part of the whole dissertation project: What understandings of security can be identified among police officers in general and in relation to refugees/refugee-specific contexts? To what extent does the police see itself as a local political actor that also seeks to create security for refugees? Answers to these questions shall be elaborated through a qualitative mixed-method approach by conducting interviews with police officers from several German cities, and through a discourse analysis of public material published by the police.