 Accessing Crown Court hearings
Crown Courts are open courts and as such accessible for all members of the public,
including ethnographers from Germany . Soon after I found a suitable position
in court to observe the scenery and to take notes, my micro-sociological perspective
blurred. The local utterances – barristers’ questions, witnesses’ answers
or closing speeches – seemed only to a degree “fresh talk” (Goffman):
they were obviously based on case-preparation materialised in texts piled on
the counsels’ desks.
The challenge started
here: obtaining access was not just
about finding people but to know ‘where
the field is’. Gaining access
turned into a journey, following the
traces related to the case-representation
on trial: the file’s content,
the barrister’s brief and notes,
the client’s instructions, the
early versions of the stories told
etc. The search-movement was facilitated
by the alternation of phases of fieldwork
and phases of analysis.
To put it in more general terms: the field consists
of several sites that overlap in the course
of the unfolding legal discourse. It spreads
in terms of time and space. Hence, gaining
access turned into an ongoing challenge leading
me to different contexts, confronting me with
different participants and made me re-negotiate
my role several times. Law firm, chambers and
courts turned out to be the major junction
for accessing the representational project,
its division of labour and its designed surfacing
in court.
At this point, I would like to thank in particular two solicitors and two barristers
that allowed me to shadow them on a day-to-day basis over months. Like a pupil they introduced me
to the particulars of legal practice. Furthermore, they let me use
files, briefs and notes. I could ask ‘stupid’ questions, sit in during
conferences and interview them.
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 New activities
Special Issue on "Law and Biography" in BIOS
Call for Abstracts/French-German Conference on “Enfermement/Freiheitsentzug”
Latest Texts/Books
My ethnography on the English Crown Court procedure by BRILL
Review
Our comparative ethnography of criminal defence work in different procedural
regimes by PALGRAVE
Teaching in SS 2011
Scheffer: „Einführung in die Institutionelle Ethnographie“ Kurs in Moodle
Scheffer: „Was tun Verfahren? Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Debatte“ Kurs in Moodle
Scheffer: „Arbeitskreis politische Ethnographie“ Termine in Moodle
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THE CASE STUDIES
Gaining access
