The Leiden Socio Legal Series

01 September 2016

Starting this academic year (2016-2017) Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Sociology of Law at the Van Vollenhoven Institute will organize the Leiden Socio-Legal Series (LSLS).

Starting in October, during this monthly speaker series, renowned (inter)national socio-legal scholars will give an hour long lecture about their own social-legal research in which specific attention is paid to the use of socio-legal research methods. During the academic year 2016-2017 several speakers from different countries, will be addressing 3 central questions while each focusing on different areas of the law (criminal law, migration law, torts law, etc.).

The questions to be addressed are:
(1)    what does socio-legal research mean to you (theoretically and/or methodologically speaking),
(2)    why can the study of the law benefit from such a perspective and how did it help you in your own research?  and – to make it a realistic series and not just a picture perfect representation –
(3)    what were the challenges of doing socio-legal research?

The LSLS is part of the multidisciplinary research profile area Interaction between Legal Systems.

This is a public lecture series.

An overview of the lectures (can be subject to change)

1. 21 October 2016, 13.00 – 15.00 h., Sterrewacht, room B1.04: Capturing papered life at the crossroad of socio-legal studies, ethnography and medical regulation -  Prof. Marie-Andree Jacob, Keele Law, United Kingdom.
2. 18 November 2016, 13.00 – 15.00 h., Faculteitskamer Rechten, Academiegebouw:  Electronic Monitoring, Privatization of Criminal Justice Administration, and the Law of Unanticipated Consequences -  Prof. Malcolm Feeley, Center for the Study of Law & Society, UC Berkeley, USA.
3. 16 December 2016, 16.00 – 17.00 h., Groot Auditorium, Academiegebouw: Discretion in Law & Society. Socio-legal reflections on the hole in the doughnut (oratie) – Prof. dr. mr. Maartje van der Woude, Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance & Development, Leiden Law School.
4. 13 January 2017, 13.00 – 15.00 h., Sterrewacht, room C1.04: Constitutional Ethnography, Counter-Constitutions, and the Study of Form, Sediment and Trajectory - Prof. Kim Lane Scheppele – Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, USA. 
5. 3 February 2017, 13.00 – 15.00 h., Sterrewacht, room B1.04: Peering Through the Legal Mobilisation Lens to Analyse the Potential of Legal Advocacy – Dr. Jeff Handmaker, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
6. 24 February 2017, 13.00 – 15.00 h., Sterrewacht, room C1.04: Many windows into the court: Socio-legal perspectives in family justice - Prof. Judith Masson, Bristol Law School, United Kingdom. 
7. 24 March 2017, 13.00 – 15.00 h., Sterrewacht, room B1.04: Exploring the economic life of law with sociological imagination, visual methods and experimental attitude – Prof. Amanda Perry-Kessaris, Kent Law School, United Kingdom.
8. 25 April 2017, 13.00 – 15.00 h., Sterrewacht, room C1.04: What can the lens of socio-legal studies add to the understanding of the everyday encounters with the administrative justice system? -  Dr. Naomi Creutzfeldt, Lecturer University of Westminster, London.
9. 12 May 2017, 13.00 – 15.00 h., KOG, room A051: Socio-Legal Approaches to International Migration - Dr. Agnieszka Kubal, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, Faculty  of Law, United Kingdom.
10. 16 June  2017, 13.00 – 15.00, KOG, room A051: The social life of rights: how politics, people and places matter in human rights research -  Prof. Barbara Oomen, Sociology of Human Rights, University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University.

After each lecture there will be plenty of time and room to engage in discussion with the speaker and with each other.

For questions regarding the LSLS or individual lectures, please contact the secretarial office of the Van Vollenhoven Institute via email at [e-mail]

• interaction between legal systems