Labeling Deviants: The Work of the Police in Northern Ghana

Police officers in Northern Ghana define deviance in a surprisingly vague way. They view the entire population as being uninformed and as terrorists. Ethnographic methods reveal the role these discourses play as strategies of orientation and legitimation. Officers also often relinquish this categorization by the invocation of friendship. However, these seemingly problematic police practices can be understood as an adaption to an environment where the police are accorded little legitimacy