Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:41:58.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The strategic use of epistemological positions in a power-laden arena: anthropological expertise in asylum cases in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2016

Markus Virgil Hoehne
Markus Virgil Hoehne*
Affiliation:
Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Leipzig, Schillerstrasse 6, 04109 Leipzig, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper deals with social anthropologists serving as expert witnesses in asylum proceedings in the UK. It argues that it is not a fundamental epistemological divide, but rather massive power differentials that characterise the relationship between social anthropologists and legal practitioners in this context. Within a narrow framework provided by the law, which focuses on ‘true facts’ and ‘objective evidence’, social anthropologists have to position themselves, and they often must do so somewhere along a spectrum from positivist to post-positivist positions (regarding, for example, such concepts as ‘culture’ and ‘identity’). This, as well as their subordinate position in the context of the proceedings, sits uneasily with the professional, moral and ethical standards of their discipline. Engagement as an expert, therefore, comes with certain costs for social anthropologists that range from having to bend one's own epistemological perspective to the risk of being ‘demolished’ as an expert (and beyond) in sometimes implicitly politicised asylum decisions.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 253 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albert, Ethel (1963) ‘Value Aspects of Teaching Anthropology' in Mandelbaum, David G., Lasker, Gabriel and Albert, Ethel (eds) The Teaching of Anthropology (AAA Memoir 94). Berkeley: University of California Press, 559–581.Google Scholar
Alvesson, Mats and Sköldberg, Kaj (2009) Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun (2001) ‘Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination’ in Appadurai, Arjun (ed.) Globalization. Durham: Duke University Press, 1–21.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal (ed.) (1973) Anthropology & the Colonial Encounter. London: Ithaca Press.Google Scholar
Berger, Peter L. and Luckmann, Thomas (1966/1987) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1989) ‘Social Space and Symbolic Power’, Sociological Theory 7(1): 14–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers and Cooper, Frederick (2000) ‘Beyond “Identity”’, Theory and Society 29(1): 1–47.Google Scholar
Cassanelli, Lee V. (1995) Victims and Vulnerable Groups in Southern Somalia. Ottawa, Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board.Google Scholar
Clifford, James (1986) ‘Introduction: Partial Truth’ in Clifford, James and Marcus, George E. (eds) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: California University Press, 1–26.Google Scholar
Clifford, James (1988) The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Clifford, James (1997) Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Harvard: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Michael (1992) ‘Law, Science, Causality and Proof’ in Kandel, Randy Frances (ed.) Double Vision: Anthropologists at Law, special issue of NAPA Bulletin 11: 22–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Genova, Nicolas and Peutz, Nathalie (eds) (2010) The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Durham: Duke University Press. Google Scholar
Elwert, Georg (2002) ‘Switching Identity Discourses: Primordial Emotions and the Social Construction of We-Groups’ in Schlee, Günther (ed.) Imagined Differences: Hatred and the Construction of Identity. Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 33–54.Google Scholar
Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn (2003) ‘Ethics in Anthropology 1890-2000: A Review of Issues and Principles’ in Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn (ed.) Ethics and the Profession of Anthropology: Dialogue for Ethically Conscious Practice. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 1–28.Google Scholar
Good, Anthony (2003) ‘Anthropologists as Experts: Asylum Appeals in British Courts’, Anthropology Today 19(5): 3–7.Google Scholar
Good, Anthony (2007) Anthropology and Expertise in the Asylum Courts. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Good, Anthony (2008) ‘Cultural Evidence in Courts of Law’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.): S47–S60.Google Scholar
Gormley, Donald C. (1955) ‘The Role of the Expert Witness’, Ethnohistory 2(4): 326–346.Google Scholar
Gupta, Akhil and Ferguson, James (1992) ‘Beyond “Culture”: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference’, Cultural Anthropology 7(1): 6–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoehne, Markus Virgil (2015) ‘Continuities and Changes Regarding Minorities in Somalia’, Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies 38(5): 792–807.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornbacher, Annette (2013) ‘Ethik als transkulturelles Dilemma: Zum Spannungsverhältnis zwischen ethnologischem Relativismus und ethischer Normativität’, Ethnoscripts 13(2): 5–19.Google Scholar
Imbusch, Peter (2006) ‘Macht und Herrschaft’ in Korte, Hermann and Schäfers, Bernhard (eds) Einführung in Hauptbegriffe der Soziologie. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 161–180.Google Scholar
James, Deborah and Killick, Evan (2012) ‘Empathy and Expertise: Case Workers and Immigration/Asylum Applicants in London’, Law and Social Theory 37(2): 430–455.Google Scholar
Karagiannis, Evangelos and Randeria, Shalini (2016) ‘Zwischen Begeisterung und Unbehagen: Ein anthropologischer Blick auf den Begriff der Kultur’ in De La Rosa, Sybille, Schubert, Sophia and Zapf, Holger (eds) Transkulturelle Politische Theorie: Eine Einführung. Wiesbaden: Springer, 63–83.Google Scholar
Kohl, Karl-Heinz (1979) Exotik als Beruf: Zum Begriff der ethnographischen Erfahrung bei B. Malinowski, E. E. Evans-Pritchard und C. Lévi-Strauss. Wiesbaden: B. Heymann Verlag.Google Scholar
Lindley, Anna (2009) ‘Leaving Mogadishu: The War on Terror and Displacement Dynamics in the Somali Regions’, MICROCON Working Paper.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luling, Virginia (2002) Somali Sultanate: The Geledi City-State over 150 Years. London: HAAN.Google Scholar
Luling, Virginia (2007) ‘A Game of Chance: Somali Asylum Applicants in the UK’ in Muchie, Mammo, Gundel, Joakim and Farah, A. Osman (eds) Somalia: Diaspora and State Reconstitution in the Horn of Africa. London: Adonis & Abbey, 43–58.Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1929) ‘Practical Anthropology’, Africa 2(1): 22–38.Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1945) The Dynamics of Culture Change: An Inquiry into Race Relations in Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mosse, David (2015) ‘Misunderstood, Misrepresented, Contested? Anthropological Knowledge Production in Question’, Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 72: 128–137.Google Scholar
Pink, Sarah (2006) ‘Introduction: Applications of Anthropology’ in Pink, Sarah (ed.) Applications of Anthropology: Professional Anthropology in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Berghahn Books, 1–26.Google Scholar
Reyna, Steve (1994) ‘Literary Anthropology and the Case against Science’, Man 29(3): 555–581.Google Scholar
Riles, Annelise (2006) ‘Anthropology, Human Rights, and Legal Knowledge: Culture in the Iron Cage’, American Anthropologist 108(1): 52–65.Google Scholar
Rottenburg, Richard (2009) Far-Fetched Facts: A Parable of Development Aid. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Schlee, Günther (1996) ‘Regelmäßigkeiten im Chaos: Die Suche nach wiederkehrenden Mustern in der jüngeren Geschichte Somalias’ in Schlee, Günther and Werner, Karin (eds) Inklusion und Exklusion: Die Dynamik von Grenzbeziehungen im Spannungsfeld von Markt, Staat und Ethnizität. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 133–159.Google Scholar
Schlee, Günther (2004) ‘Taking Sides and Constructing Identities: Reflections on Conflict Theory’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10(1): 135–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholte, Bob (1972) ‘Toward a Reflexive and Critical Anthropology’ in Hymes, Dell (ed.) Reinventing Anthropology. New York: Pantheon Books, 430–459.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988) In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen.Google Scholar
Thuen, Trond (2004) ‘Anthropological Knowledge in the Courtroom: Conflicting Paradigms’, Social Anthropology 12(3): 265–287.Google Scholar
Van Dyk, Silke (2012) ‘Poststrukturalismus: Gesellschaft. Kritik: Über Potenziale, Probleme und Perspektiven’ PROKLA 42(2): 185–210.Google Scholar