Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/UW-Madison/Global Politics of Policing (Summer 2024)

Assignment description:

In past iterations of this course, students wrote essays comparing the politics, histories, theories, and futures of policing in two different places and times. For the summer online version of this course, this has been upgraded to a Wikipedia assignment for students to further develop digital literacy, writing, and critical thinking skills while contributing to public knowledge. Students will select an aspect or context of policing related to what we are covering in the course. They will then do research on your chosen topic, create an annotated bibliography, and evaluate and edit an existing Wikipedia page. There will be structured trainings and discussions around finding and evaluating authoritative sources, analyzing competing claims and the validity of their evidence about a subject, accurately describing multiple viewpoints and detecting their differing interests within systems of power, and engaging in formal communication processes to share ideas while adhering to ethical standards of public writing. These skills are crucial to engaging with the global politics of policing, in this course and beyond.

Course description:

This course takes a global approach to the politics of the police and policing. We begin with key concepts and theories of the relationship between policing and power. We then examine policing from the 17th century to the present within and between different contexts, including Nigeria, Brazil, France, Canada, South Africa, the Navajo Nation, Japan, the United Kingdom, Palestine, Tanzania, South Korea, and the United States. The course ends with an examination of social movements’ organizing toward democracy, abolitionist alternatives, and transformative justice. Students will leave the course with the foundational knowledge and analytical tools to address important questions around the politics of policing, such as: what is policing; how and why did the police emerge; what does policing look like around the world; and what is the future of the police and policing?