Oceania believes that in this essay the legal scholar Gary Edmond provides anthropologists with a valuable approach to analyzing the relationship which has developed in recent years between the practice of law and the practice of anthropology. Therefore we invite responses to 'Thick Decisions', which should be about 1000 words and confined to specific arguments. A selection of responses will be published in the next. issue of the journal. Please contact the editor if you intend to respond.
Thick Decisions: Expertise, Advocacy and Reasonableness in the Federal Court of Australia Gary EdmondIThe University ofNew South Wales ABSTRACT Drawing from the litigation around the Hindmarsh Island Bridge (especially Chapman v Luminis Pty Ltd 2(01) this article provides an analysis of judicial responses to anthropological expertise. Sensitive to the institutional responsibilities of judges, as well as rules of evidence, procedures and legal causes of action, it examines the strategic representation and appropriation of anthropological knowledge and practice. In exploring the relations between law and expertise the article illustrates how their combination shapes outcomes. In the process it explains how the judge could have produced a range of (in)consistent outcomes through the modulation of legal categories and their relations with prevalent images of anthropological expertise. This analysis positions the article to critically reflect on some of the implications for anthropologists working in and around legal or quasi-legal settings as well as those commenting on that participation.