 The
Project
The project is funded by the German Association for
Research (DFG) within the
Emmy-Noether-programme. The overall time of 6 years is divided in
2 phases: the first phase (2 years) gives room for a pre-study conducted
in a ‘foreign’ academic environment. Here, Dr Thomas Scheffer
had chosen the University of Lancaster due to their excellent Sociology
Department and Centre for Science Studies. These involvements widened
the project’s scope: from micro-sociology (e.g. Conversation
Analysis) to concepts employed by Science Studies (e.g. Laboratory
Studies and Actor-Network Theory).
The second phase started in May 2003 with the employment
of Alex Kozin , Livia Holden and Kati Hannken-Illjes at the Freie
Universität Berlin . They have different backgrounds (from Communication
Studies, Phenomenology, Ethnology) but all dealt in detail with language
use in institutional settings. The young researchers’ group
was situated within the Collaborative Research Center “Performative
Cultures” at the FU Berlin. Here, the group is confronted with advanced
concepts of performativity developed (between scholars from Theatre
Studies, social history, Philosophy or Literature Studies) for different
empirical fields.
The first round of fieldwork began
in May 2003 in the US , Italy , and Germany . The comparative framework
was organised along two adversarial and two inquisitorial legal traditions.
Each group member conducts his/her case study independently, only bound
to the same angle within criminal proceedings (the defence), to some
shared problematics (linking pre-trial and trial) and to exchange insights
with the other members. The prospect of ‘our collaboration’:
next to ethnographies of the diverse legal proceedings, we aim for informed
concepts for historiographic discourse analysis and for opening examples
of comparative studiens on law-in-action.
The project will end in summer 2009. We currently started a complimentary project dealing with political inquiries in the EU, Germany, and the UK and the invocation of national and trans-national political publics.
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New activities
I currently conduct ethnographic fieldwork at the German Bundestag.
Agenda
Out now: "Thick Comparison - Reviving the Ethnographic Aspiration" , edited by Scheffer & Niewöhner, BRILL
Out soon: "Adversarial Case-Making" (Scheffer) BRILL
Out soon: "Defence Work and Procedure" (Scheffer, Kozin & Hannken-Illjes) PALGRAVE
Latest
Texts
Scheffer (2010) Knowing how to sleepwalk. Placing Expert Evidence ... OnlineFirst in Science, Technology & Human Values (STHV)
Scheffer (2010) Indirect Moralizing. Early View in Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior (JTSB)
Kozin (2010) Book Note on "Roger Shuy's Fighting over words..." in Language in Society
Teaching in SS 2010
Seminar für Masterstudierende "Kulturen des Parlamentarismus" Mo. 16.00-18.00 am IfEE, HU Berlin
AG "Politische Ethnographie" [anmelden bei scheffer@law-in-action.org]
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The Project
THE CASE STUDIES
