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Framing the View

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Courtroom Ethnography

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Abstract

This chapter considers a principal challenge of courtroom ethnography—the task of deciding how to frame your view. It confronts some of the key methodological questions encountered by courtroom ethnographers at the start and throughout their research journey, and suggests some lines along which we might delineate and organise ethnographic inquiry to make it more manageable. This chapter draws on issues faced in the course of two ethnographic studies of immigration courts undertaken by the author, and reflects on how, in framing our ethnographic view, choices are inflected by our personal and scholarly lifeworlds. In sketching out a non-linear, iterative process of frame selection, navigation, and capture, the chapter calls for courtroom ethnography that embraces complexity and surprise alongside ethical and methodological clarity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Advocates in Asylum Appeals’ (2017) University of Bristol, funded by UK Economic and Social Research Council Studentship.

  2. 2.

    ‘ASYFAIR’, Principal Investigator: Professor Nick Gill. Funded by EU Horizon 2020 grant StG-2015_677917.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian National University College of Law, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Jessica Hambly

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  1. Jessica Hambly
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Correspondence to Jessica Hambly .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Lisa Flower

  2. University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Sarah Klosterkamp

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Hambly, J. (2023). Framing the View. In: Flower, L., Klosterkamp, S. (eds) Courtroom Ethnography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37985-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37985-7_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-37985-7

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