Maktrelationer mellan män genom ålder. Status, auktoritet och marginalitet inom närpolisen

Abstract

In this text a "doing gender" perspective is used when analysing ordering practices in relation to how gender and age is done in two community police organisations. Parallel with the construction of a gender order, an order of seniority is done and the two orders are intertwined which give rice to variations between men, and between women and men. Seniority is linked to age, a physiological fact, but how people understand and interpret age is a social construction. The social constructions of seniority in relation to age is made relevant and irrelevant depending on the context and in some contexts seniority can be used as a resource that gives privileges, responsibilities and authority. The effects of ordering practices in the two studied community police organisations are differentiations between young, middle-aged and old men in relation to status, authority and marginality. The nightly patrolling in cars, generally performed by young men, is seen as "real" police work and a way of working that is emphasized by all organisational members. This is mainly a discursive construction that is intertwined with the notion of a hegemonic masculinity, which at the same time is a construction of a youth masculinity. The middleaged men hold positions and are authorities and they do the planning of the police work. Their authority is sustained by the order of seniority. A division of labour occur between the young men and the middle-aged men, where the latter are planning the police work and the former perform it. Performing "real" police work at night give the young men status, but not authority. Seniority can't bee used forever. For the oldest men the length of service in the police force has ceased to be a primary asset in relation to younger police officers. Compared to the young and middleaged men, the oldest men are marginalized. This marginalization is both a matter of competence and space.