Whose side were we on? Positionality and identities in researching the plural policing of Scottish football

This chapter details the challenges of conducting a collaborative research study of an important topic – the plural policing of football fans and events – in a politicised context characterised by power, passion and resistance. Drawing upon the original insights of Loader and Sparks (2011) that bestowed the conceptual frame of hot and cool climates for criminological research, and the subsequent application of this frame to the Scottish context by Murray and Harkin (2017), this chapter reflects on the politics of conducting policing research and ‘taking sides’. Our research, which examined the role of private matchday security in the plural policing of Scottish football events (Atkinson and Graham, 2020), is reinterrogated and reflected upon. We discuss our own individual politics as part of our collaborative research project, and we frame this delicate but purposive negotiation as a valuable, if at the times somewhat submerged, aspect of our work. Doing so allows us to ask ourselves ‘whose side were we on?’, and our answer allows us to reflect our own work the future of critical policing research.