Relations of social access: information networks and interlocutions when approaching police station documents in the Alto Solimões/Amazonas Region

Abstract

Introduction: The field of social research in police organizations reveals a tension related to the access to data and information, especially because these records were produced in police stations in Brazil, that store sensitive information and are maintained by an institution with a long history of restricting access. The present study investigated the access mechanisms and strategies used by a research group in the Alto Solimões Mesoregion (Amazonas State), as well as their relations and communications when accessing data and information on violence against women at four districts. Methodology: It was used content analysis procedures which were based on field reports produced by the research group. The methodology establishes three stages: pre-analysis; exploration of the material and treatment of results: inference and interpretation. Results: As for the interlocutions and the information network the interaction of the interlocutors may influence the access to the organizations; it could be identified an efficient personal network in the districts; the research team got full access to the organizations, with only one case of justified restriction; there were contribution of internal agents that accelerate the collection of data and collaborate in information recovery. Conclusions: The observations during the analysis allowed to consider two new concepts - initially conceived as "Previous access" and "Relations of Social Access" - that could be added to the "legal access" and "intellectual access" formulation of Jardim (1999b). These the social conditions that previously help in building the access, as well as the definition of the steps to access the records/documents kept by these organizations, can be considered as a contribuition of this investigation.