Anthropological Witness

Anthropological Witness
Author: Alexander Laban Hinton
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2022-10-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 150176571X

Anthropological Witness tells the story of Alexander Laban Hinton's encounter with an accused architect of genocide and, more broadly, Hinton's attempt to navigate the promises and perils of expert testimony. In March 2016, Hinton served as an expert witness at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, an international tribunal established to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes committed during the 1975–79 Cambodian genocide. His testimony culminated in a direct exchange with Pol Pot's notorious right-hand man, Nuon Chea, who was engaged in genocide denial. Anthropological Witness looks at big questions about the ethical imperatives and epistemological assumptions involved in explanation and the role of the public scholar in addressing issues relating to truth, justice, social repair, and genocide. Hinton asks: Can scholars who serve as expert witnesses effectively contribute to international atrocity crimes tribunals where the focus is on legal guilt as opposed to academic explanation? What does the answer to this question say more generally about academia and the public sphere? At a time when the world faces a multitude of challenges, the answers Hinton provides to such questions about public scholarship are urgent.

Law's Anthropology

Law's Anthropology
Author: Paul Burke
Publisher: ANU E Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2011-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1921862432

Anthropologists have been appearing as key expert witnesses in native title claims for over 20 years. Until now, however, there has been no theoretically-informed, detailed investigation of how the expert testimony of anthropologists is formed and how it is received by judges. This book examines the structure and habitus of both the field of anthropology and the juridical field and how they have interacted in four cases, including the original hearing in the Mabo case. The analysis of background material has been supplemented by interviews with the key protagonists in each case. This allows the reader a unique, insider's perspective of the courtroom drama that unfolds in each case. The book asks, given the available ethnographic research, how will the anthropologist reconstruct it in a way that is relevant to the legal doctrine of native title when that doctrine gives a wide leeway for interpretation on the critical questions.

Ethics and Professionalism in Forensic Anthropology

Ethics and Professionalism in Forensic Anthropology
Author: Nicholas V. Passalacqua
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2018-04-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0128120665

Forensic anthropologists are confronted with ethical issues as part of their education, research, teaching, professional development, and casework. Despite the many ethical challenges that may impact forensic anthropologists, discourse and training in ethics are limited. The goal for Ethics and Professionalism in Forensic Anthropology is to outline the current state of ethics within the field and to start a discussion about the ethics, professionalism, and legal concerns associated with the practice of forensic anthropology.This volume addresses: - The need for professional ethics - Current ethical guidelines applicable to forensic anthropologists and their means of enforcement - Different approaches to professionalism within the context of forensic anthropology, including issues of scientific integrity, qualifications, accreditation and quality assurance - The use of human subjects and human remains in forensic anthropology research - Ethical and legal issues surrounding forensic anthropological casework, including: analytical notes, case reports, peer review, incidental findings, and testimony - Harassment and discrimination in science, anthropology, and forensic anthropology

Fundamentals of Forensic Anthropology

Fundamentals of Forensic Anthropology
Author: Linda L. Klepinger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2006-06-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0470007710

An essential foundation for the practice of forensic anthropology This text is the first of its level written in more than twenty years. It serves as a summary and guide to the core material that needs to be mastered and evaluated for the practice of forensic anthropology. The text is divided into three parts that collectively provide a solid base in theory and methodology: Part One, "Background Setting for Forensic Anthropology," introduces the field and discusses the role of forensic anthropology in historic context. Part Two, "Towards Personal Identification," discusses initial assessments of skeletal remains; determining sex, age, ancestral background, and stature; and skeletal markers of activity and life history. Part Three, "Principal Anthropological Roles in Medical-Legal Investigation," examines trauma; the postmortem period; professionalism, ethics, and the expert witness; and genetics and DNA. The critical and evaluative approach to the primary literature stresses the inherent biological constraints on degrees of precision and certainty, and cautions about potential pitfalls. The practical focus, coupled with theoretical basics, make Fundamentals of Forensic Anthropology ideal for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students in biological anthropology as well as forensic scientists in allied fields of medical-legal investigation.

Cultural Expertise

Cultural Expertise
Author: Livia Holden
Publisher: MDPI
Total Pages: 94
Release: 2020
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3039280503

Cultural expertise in the form of expert opinions formulated by social scientists appointed as experts in the legal process is not different from any other kind of expertise in court. In specialised fields of law, such as native land titles in America and in Australia, the appointment of social scientists as experts in court is a consolidated practice. This Special Issue focuses on the contemporary evolution and variation of cultural expertise as an emergent concept providing a conceptual umbrella for a variety of evolving practices, which all include use of the specialised knowledge of social sciences for the resolution of conflicts. It surveys the application of cultural expertise in the legal process with an unprecedented span of fields ranging from criminology and ethnopsychiatry to the recognition of the rights of autochthone minorities including linguistic expertise, and modern reformulation of cultural rights. In this Special Issue, the emphasis is on the development and change of culture-related expert witnessing over recent times, culture-related adjudication, and resolution of disputes, criminal litigation, and other kinds of court and out-of-court procedures. This Special Issue offers descriptions of judicial practices involving experts in local laws and customs and surveys of the most frequent fields of expert witnessing that are related with culture; interrogates who the experts are, their links with local communities, and also with the courts and the state power and politics; how cultural expert witnessing has been received by judges; how cultural expertise has developed across the sister disciplines of history and psychiatry; and eventually, it asks whether academic truth and legal truth are commensurable across time and space.

Applications of Anthropology

Applications of Anthropology
Author: Sarah Pink
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2006
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781845450274

At the beginning of the twenty-first century the demand for anthropological approaches, understandings and methodologies outside academic departments is shifting and changing. Through a series of fascinating case studies of anthropologists’ experiences of working with very diverse organizations in the private and public sector this volume examines existing and historical debates about applied anthropology. It explores the relationship between the "pure and the impure" – academic and applied anthropology, the question of anthropological identities in new working environments, new methodologies appropriate to these contexts, the skills needed by anthropologists working in applied contexts where multidisciplinary work is often undertaken, issues of ethics and responsibility, and how anthropology is perceived from the ‘outside’. The volume signifies an encouraging future both for the application of anthropology outside academic departments and for the new generation of anthropologists who might be involved in these developments.

The Use of Social Science Data in Supreme Court Decisions

The Use of Social Science Data in Supreme Court Decisions
Author: Rosemary J. Erickson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1998
Genre: Judicial process
ISBN: 9780252066610

The cultures of law and social science differ markedly as to the kinds of truth they pursue. Law is deductive, presenting its findings as certainties; social science is largely inductive, presenting its conclusions as subject to revision and contingency. Yet the legal community traditionally draws at will and unsystematically on the findings of social science, sometimes with unfortunate results. The authors of this study explore this issue by focusing on the manner in which the United States Supreme Court uses social science data in reaching its decisions. Concentrating on decisions involving the issues of abortion, sex discrimination, and sexual harassment, they show that the use of such data has increased over the last twenty years, but they also show that whether such data are used appears to hinge more on the liberal, conservative, or longheld positions of the judges and the types of cases involved, rather than on the objectivity or validity of the data. By offering insights into how data are used by the Supreme Court, the authors hope to show social scientists how to make their research more suitable for courtroom use and to show the legal community how such data can be used more effectively.

Forensic Anthropology Training Manual

Forensic Anthropology Training Manual
Author: Karen Ramey Burns
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2015-09-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131734829X

Provides basic information on successfully collecting, processing, analyzing, and describing skeletal human remains. Forensic Anthropology Training Manual serves as a practical reference tool and a framework for training in forensic anthropology. The first chapter informs judges, attorneys, law enforcement personnel, and international workers of the information and services available from a professional forensic anthropologist. The first section (Chapters 2-11) is a training guide to assist in the study of human skeletal anatomy. The second section (Chapters 12-17) focuses on the specific work of the forensic anthropologist, beginning with an introduction to the forensic sciences. Learning Goals Upon completing this book readers will be able to: Have a strong foundation in human skeletal anatomy Explain how this knowledge contributes to the physical description and personal identification of human remains Understand the basics of excavating a grave, preparing a forensic report, and presenting expert witness testimony in a court of law Define forensic anthropology within the broader context of the forensic sciences Describe the work of today’s forensic anthropologists

Anthropology and Expertise in the Asylum Courts

Anthropology and Expertise in the Asylum Courts
Author: Anthony Good
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2007-03-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1135308853

Although asylum has generated unparalleled levels of public and political concern over the past decade, there has been astonishingly little field research on the topic. This is a study of the legal process of claiming asylum from an anthropological perspective, focusing on the role of expert evidence from 'country experts' such as anthropologists. It describes how such evidence is used in assessments of asylum claims by the Home Office and by adjudicators and tribunals hearing asylum appeals. It compares uses of social scientific and medical evidence in legal decision-making and analyzes, anthropologically, the legal uses of key concepts from the 1951 Refugee Convention, such as 'race', 'religion', and 'social group'. The evidence is drawn from field observation of more than 300 appeal hearings in London and Glasgow; from reported case law and from interviews with immigration adjudicators, tribunal chairs, barristers and solicitors, as well as expert witnesses.