Fieldwork on Law

Abstract

▪ Abstract Based on a review of field-based scholarship on law published in English in 2004 and 2005, this review focuses on themes most strongly emergent across the disciplines of law and the social sciences: state regulation of the private sector, rights (individual rights, indigenous rights, and human rights), and security. These developing areas of field research show the impact of neoliberalism on the social fields of law, an impact intensified by the war on terror. They also point to fresh theoretical horizons in relation to issues of identity, hegemony, and the discursivity of state power. Although disciplines retain their distinctive questions and approaches, they reveal common attention to discourse and practice—particularly in relation to critical events in the war on terror and new forms of executive power, especially in the United States. Current literature thus points not only to new terrain for field research on law, but also, correspondingly, to the changing nature of the field itself as a methodological object.

Medical Aid in Dying: New Frontiers in Medicine, Law, and Culture

“…In a series of publications, Karsoho and colleagues explore what they call "the 'constitutive' effects of a legal action" (Karsoho et al 2017, p. 47; see also Greenhouse 2006, Mather 1998, Sharma 2013. This work illustrates how the legalization process creates new truths and cultural meanings, demonstrating the coproduction of law and society ( Jasanoff 2006).…”

Field Research on Law in Conflict Zones and Authoritarian States

“…Four of these deal with field research conducted outside the United States, though none were in authoritarian states or conflict zones (Halliday & Schmidt 2009). The most recent Annual Review of Law and Social Science article on field research was a review of fieldwork-based studies of law published in 2004 and 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the American "war on terror" (Greenhouse 2006). And some work now being labeled "the new legal realism" emphasizes the "empirical study of people's lived experiences of law, politics, and power" (Massoud 2016b, p. 97; see also Klug & Merry 2016, Mertz et al 2016, Suchman & Mertz 2010.…”

“…Reflecting on the field research experience. Returning from a period of fieldwork provides an opportunity to reflect upon one's experiences and the challenges that arose in light of existing literature (Greenhouse 2006) 2010). Consider how and where research results will be disseminated and the constraints related to reporting methodology in articles, books, and public presentations.…”

Language-and-Law Scholarship: An Interdisciplinary Conversation and a Post-9/11 Example

“…As Carol Greenhouse (2006, p. 191) has pointed out, the field of 9/11 scholarship is imbued with theoretical significance, in part because "[t]he compression of events and the intensity of the performativity of text in relation to the buildup to war and other aspects of the war on terror challenge the conventional distinctions between text and practice, discourse and event, and even legality and authority." Language-and-law scholarship, because of its overlapping harmonies with the social sciences, the humanities, and cultural studies, is especially well positioned to engage with the compressions, intensities, and dismantling of distinctions that Greenhouse (2006Greenhouse ( , 2011 flags because, as she notes, a major arena and vehicle for these dynamics is discourse.…”