Nicoletta Policek’s longstanding research interest is in feminist and post-feminist criminological theory. In particular her interest is in the relationship between specific systems of classification such as class, gender and sexuality and how they become intertwined with the practices of crime and crime control.

Her overall present research plan involves the development of her research within three principal research themes, namely (1) the construction of identity through policing, (2) women in the city and (3) gender and genocide. The last two areas emerge out of, but are grounded in, the first research theme.

1) The construction and de-construction of identity through policing: my research here evolves from both my doctoral thesis and subsequent research undertaken on behalf of the Scottish Executive as part of the Expert Group on Prostitution. My research conducted on female street prostitution in several locations in Scotland demonstrates the importance of understanding how sex workers’ identity is constructed through policing. My argument is that by taking control of the street, through the management of their personal identities, sex workers exercise power in all sorts of subtle and even unorthodox ways. These power practices are not dramatic but rather microscopic attempts to shift the power imbalance in favour of the women themselves, thus constantly re-shaping their identities. These power practices are (i) the range of ‘distancing techniques –such as use of drugs, use of condoms, routines and rules governing client transactions – employed to maintain a strict divide between work sex and non-work sex. Other power practices are (ii) the ability of female street prostitutes to negotiate power through the regulatory function of shame and the negotiation of ‘truth’ and (iii) consequently, female sex workers’ ability to draw on and generate knowledge(s) which the women constantly use to shape their relationship with the local police, especially in their role as police informants.

2) Women in the city: social relations, including importantly gender relations, are constructed and negotiated spacially. My main interest here is in the city as a ‘criminogenic space’. This is a notion that should be seen within the context of a criminology that approaches so-called ‘criminogenic spaces’ in the same way that the new cultural geography approaches ‘post modern space’ From this theoretical standpoint I am interested in issues around crime prevention and regeneration.

3) Gender and genocide: particularly in the European imagination, the victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing tend to be configured as male. This homogenization makes women’s experiences invisible and silent. Memories of an historical event can acquire or be made to acquire definitive significance in a nation’s view of itself and of ‘the other’ and times of international and/or civil conflict, can be particularly productive of such memory forming events.