Crafting Socio-Legal Methods: Local Realities and Global Debates

Despite growing demand by governments, legal bodies, and the private sector to understand more deeply how law works in practice, teaching on research methods is marginalised within law faculties. This is particularly true for institutions in Africa, where research methods find little space in law school curricula. Our proposal focuses on crafting and writing about methods, an integral part of publishing socio-legal work in leading journals. Our particular focus is on promoting discussions about what methods are being used in the global South, how these reflect the need to decolonising research questions and empirical research, addressing epistemological inequalities, and fostering South-South research. We also respond to the recent Cape Town Statement on Research Integrity by working in partnership with early-career scholars. We aim to bolster accounts of African-specific methodological practices of emerging scholars and to facilitate the publication of this work.

Workshop team: Professor Linda Mulcahy, University of Oxford; Professor Jonathen Klaaren, University of the Witwatersrand; Dr Faeeza Ballim, University Of Johannesburg; Professor Nicole Stremlau, University of Johannesburg; University of Oxford.