Forensic and Expert Social Anthropological Practice: An Introduction

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Anthropological Forum presents a collection of articles by international practitioners of forensic and expert social anthropology (FESA), and related areas of law. The forensic and expert specialisation of social anthropology focuses on the provision of evidence to legal-administrative processes overseen by courts and other legally empowered organisations, where human social culture is deemed an important factor. Social anthropology, as a field of expertise that studies links between culturally specific, collectively held ideas and observable patterns of social interaction, is an appropriate source of evidence for such processes. However, the field in general does not necessarily confer the specific training, study and experience required by the highly probative demands of presiding authorities. To address this gap, FESA advances a range of legally relevant concepts, objective investigative and analytical methods, and justice-oriented ethical principles. FESA applies this three-part focus consistently in its engagement both with legal-administrative processes and with the communities and individuals who seek justice using those processes, many of whom are marginalised within the national populations to which they belong. Contributors to this special issue have backgrounds working in Australia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Africa and Europe. Variation between the legal-administrative regimes in each of these regions highlights both FESA’s universal relevance, and its emerging coherence as a specialist field. The articles brought together in this special issue describe FESA practice under a range of legal-administrative regimes spanning Indigenous land claims, intellectual property disputes, cultural heritage preservation procedures, asylum claims and allegations of gender-based discrimination and genocide.

KEYWORDS:

• Social anthropology
• cultural anthropology
• forensic social anthropology
• forensic and expert social anthropology
• Expert Witnessing

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As distinct from specifically material culture (Hunter and Cox 2005), linguistic culture (Coulthard, Johnson, and Wright 2017) or any other form of patterned human behaviour.

2 As defined by Australia’s Evidence Act 1995 (C’th) (1995).

3 FESA investigation may include elements of what is conventionally referred to as ‘fieldwork’ or ‘field research’, as well as 'desktop research’. It is not related to the historic practice of what is sometimes termed ‘thick description’, which is more closely related to literary forms of journalism (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Scholte 1987).