1st Edition

Sexuality in the Swedish Police From Gay Jokes to Pride Parades

By Jens Rennstam Copyright 2023
212 Pages
by Routledge

212 Pages
by Routledge

Sexuality in the Swedish Police is based on the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual police officers and the author's observations of police work. Written at the intersection of organizational, gender, and police studies, the book analyses how processes of exclusion and inclusion of LGB sexuality coexist in the Swedish police, how these processes are related to the culture and... Read more

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Chapter 2 - The judiciary and homosexuality

Chapter 3 – Exclusion

Chapter 4 - The Struggle Between Exclusion and Inclusion

Chapter 5 - The Macho Image and the Inclusion of Homosexuality

Chapter 6 - Policing and the Inclusion of Homosexuality

Chapter 7 - Not Real Police Work: On Managerial Work for Inclusion

Chapter 8 - Conclusion

Biography

Jens Rennstam is Associate Professor of Business Administration at Lund University, Sweden. He has long experience of qualitative inquiry into organizations and his previous work has been published in esteemed outlets such as Gender, Work and Organizations, Human Relations, Marketing Theory, Organization, and Organization Studies.

"This is a very readable and well-written book that tackles a pressing issue in an accessible manner. With a clear and relevant conceptual apparatus and a wealth of empirical material, Jens Rennstam makes visible the issue of exclusion and inclusion of gay sexualities within the Swedish police. Rennstam demonstrates how these issues have implications for those working in the police. Perhaps most obviously for those who self-identify as LGBTQ+, but it is significant for everyone in the police force because the narrow frames of action that exclusion generates affect everyone in the organization.

An important lesson of the book is that issues of inclusion and exclusion are collective processes. Rennstam shows that in these processes the voice of LGBTQ+ people is important, but other voices and support are also needed, not least among managers and leaders. The police as an organization can greatly benefit from the book in the continued work of change towards inclusion and away from exclusion. In this work, the book is not limited to LGBTQ+ issues but provides a broader knowledge of the work on issues of inclusion and exclusion, and the book's grounding in organizational theory makes it relevant to organizations other than the police."

Tove Pettersson, Professor of Criminology, Stockholm University.