Reflections: Presentations

WATCH: Sanne Taekema: On the fence: legal researchers between practices and disciplines

Sanne Taekema is a Professor at the Faculty of Law at UiB and Erasmus School of Law in Rotterdam. In this presentation, she describes how legal doctrinal scholars sit on the fence between practice and discipline. She makes the point that legal scholars are first and foremost trained for practice, not as academics and researchers.  

Doctrinal scholars often find research questions in practices that challenge the coherence and certainty of law. Interdisciplinary comes from an interest in law in context, and how law functions in society. 

Taekema gives an example of an environmental case that in one way is about strictly legal questions (can NGOs hold oil companies to account for climate change?) but could also be explored from other angles (how do civic actors use law to pursue political or social claims?).    

She concludes by describing specific approaches to interdisciplinary research in law. 

LISTEN: Mikkel Rytter: What legal researchers should know about anthropological methods

What do lawyers need to know about anthropology? In this presentation from the project's first workshop, Professor Mikkel Rytter gives a concise and engaging overview of the field of anthropology.

WATCH: Reflections on interdisciplinary research experience

In this webinar, hosted by the VULNER research consortium, Professors Anuscheh Farahat and Marie-Claire Foblets discuss opportunities and challenges derived from interdisciplinary research.

Professor Farahat's presentation gives tips on how to develop an interdisciplinary research design either as an individual researcher (the 'lonesome interdisciplinary cowgirl') or as part of a team. She suggests concrete tools to foster exchange and disseminate research results, and emphasizes the importance of reconciling divergent conceptual meanings in a field by being sensitive to the stereotypes and presumptions underpinning the use of specific terms (i.e. 'refugee').

Professor Foblets, meanwhile, stressed the dilemmas for anthropologists participating in legal practice related to confidentiality, vulnerability, and informed consent. She also points out that an anthropologist's inductive approach, and recognition of the plurality of sources of binding rules for a society, can lead to misunderstandings with legal practitioners who, naturally, are concerned with state-centered normativity.

Highly recommended!