Courtroom Ethnography

"To understand the work of law we need to make sense of the courtroom, a space of majesty, possibility, oppression, and routine. This valuable ethnography tells us why and how." -Nicholas Blomley, Professor of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Canada "Courtroom Ethnography builds on an impressive array of empirical research to investigate thoroughly the multiple practical, visual, interpretive, and political challenges of doing court observations. With robust data from eight countries, 21 authors and 14 chapters, this volume is the go-to resource for research in and around courtrooms." -Sharyn Roach Anleu, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor, Flinders University, Australia "This edited collection provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of how courtroom ethnography can be used to get a rich understanding of a complex and nuanced process. This collection provides a mix of theoretical and practical examples for the reader to draw on and appreciate the art of ethnography." -Naomi Creutzfeldt, Professor of Law and Society, Kent Law School, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK This book provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of courtroom ethnography. This collection gathers international researchers from a multitude of disciplines to explore three central themes: doing courtroom ethnography, ethnographic studies of the courtroom, and contemporary and critical aspects of courtroom ethnography. It highlights the nuances, negotiations, and issues that ethnographic researchers face in the courtroom. It covers topics like how to study legal actors and lay participants, legal and social processes, norms and rulings, digitalisation and vulnerability, gender and inequalities, and more across a range of legal cases. It presents the current state of the art of the field of courthouse ethnography with a discussion of methodological challenges, modes of access and best practice examples. With practical tips/questions at the end of each chapter, it speaks to students and above in subjects including sociology, criminology, law, geography, sociology of law, conflict studies, socio-legal studies and beyond. Lisa Flower is Associate Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at the Department of Sociology, Lund University, Sweden. Her research explores the role of emotions in legal professionals’ work and how experiences and understandings of the legal sphere are shaped by digitalization. Sarah Klosterkamp is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and Associate Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Bonn University, Germany. Her work investigates how the law proceeds and multiplies classed and racialized geographies of inequalities within and through state-driven institutions such as courts, social housing facilities, employment offices, and carceral spaces.