PUBLICATION
ABSTRACT
This article demonstrates how various forms of surveillance can lead to coping strategies that are corrosive of trust and legitimacy between black neighborhood residents and law enforcement. This article introduces the coping strategy of submissive civility as a method of self-preservation enacted in social situations where power relations are asymmetrical and the dominant party can administer sanctions. Reporting on an ethnographic study of residents’ interactions with police and other agents of surveillance, this article surveys a range of problems that residents face as they try to meet conflicting demands while avoiding sanctions. The analysis shows that issues of trust, legitimacy, and the discretionary authority of police and other outsiders in the neighborhood pervade these interactions. Further, the analysis highlights the complex ways in which family dynamics, unemployment, debt, and drug dealing intersect with the activities of law enforcement and the threat of imprisonment that is woven into the fabric of residents’ lives.