TY - JOUR
T1 - Rule-of-law ethnography
AU - Cheesman, Nick
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/10/13
Y1 - 2018/10/13
N2 - This review outlines an emerging agenda for ethnographic interpretation of the rule of law. From a survey of studies done on the rule of law in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, the review identifies four general characteristics of this mode of inquiry, namely, that it is located, relational, and comparative and has extrinsic value. It offers three nonexhaustive reasons for interpreting the rule of law ethnographically, which are as a counterhegemonic practice, in response to counterintuitive observations, and as a means to do constitutive theorizing. Contending that ethnographic work on the rule of law involves some kind of stance toward both research subjects and object of inquiry, the review advocates for the exercise of passionate humility: a conviction about the rule of law tempered by willingness to be proven wrong through inquiries in critical proximity with socially and politically mediated facts. Rule-of-law ethnography's possibility lies in its attending to the relationship between what is claimed in the rule of law's name and what is realized, not to make the idea look foolish, but to show how it emerges and why it persists through struggle.
AB - This review outlines an emerging agenda for ethnographic interpretation of the rule of law. From a survey of studies done on the rule of law in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, the review identifies four general characteristics of this mode of inquiry, namely, that it is located, relational, and comparative and has extrinsic value. It offers three nonexhaustive reasons for interpreting the rule of law ethnographically, which are as a counterhegemonic practice, in response to counterintuitive observations, and as a means to do constitutive theorizing. Contending that ethnographic work on the rule of law involves some kind of stance toward both research subjects and object of inquiry, the review advocates for the exercise of passionate humility: a conviction about the rule of law tempered by willingness to be proven wrong through inquiries in critical proximity with socially and politically mediated facts. Rule-of-law ethnography's possibility lies in its attending to the relationship between what is claimed in the rule of law's name and what is realized, not to make the idea look foolish, but to show how it emerges and why it persists through struggle.
KW - ethnography
KW - interpretive social science
KW - passionate humility
KW - political
KW - rule of law
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054975334&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-101317-030900
DO - 10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-101317-030900
M3 - Review article
SN - 1550-3585
VL - 14
SP - 167
EP - 184
JO - Annual Review of Law and Social Science
JF - Annual Review of Law and Social Science
ER -