Surviving Challenges of Accessing Data and Harnessing Emotion as a Tool for Worldmaking

This chapter explores the evolution of a research project initially in a police department to bars as a response to accessibility concerns and activist aims. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, police were, in many ways an omnipresent yet hard-to-reach population, making them challenging to study—a global pandemic and uprisings against police violence only further limited accessibility. As a graduate student focused on researching police, these accessibility issues required necessitating the exploration of alternative entry points, such as engaging in a virtual ethnography or reframing research questions—responses learned through discussions in the Law and Ethnography Lab. Initially embarking on a new virtual ethnography by listening to an endless supply of victims’ statements from people who experienced police violence, compelled reflection on self-care and the role of a researcher. Hindered by the thought of continuing to view the spectacle of state violence, the research shifted again, this time to explore the common claims that police abolition is impossible. Through considerations of self-care, discussions with LGBTQ+ associates, and persistent accessibility challenges, the research trajectory pivoted once more—from direct examination of the police to exploration of queer safety practices and potential avenues for alternative forms of justice detached from law enforcement.