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Cultural Expertise in Europe: What is it useful for?

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - EURO-EXPERT (Cultural Expertise in Europe: What is it useful for?)

Período documentado: 2020-03-01 hasta 2022-01-31

EURO-EXPERT addresses the following question: Cultural Expertise in Europe: What is it useful for? which is crucial for going beyond formal justice and providing legal and para-legal professionals with concrete instruments for substantive justice in multicultural and diverse societies. EURO-EXPERT develops an integrated concept of cultural expertise within a new historiographical framework that investigates the development and impact of cultural expertise over time and space. EURO-EXPERT records the use and impact of cultural expertise in fifteen European countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In-context data are collected through ethnographic fieldwork conducted by a modular team trained to mixed methods. The objectives of EURO-EXPERT are: 1) mapping the terms and conditions of cultural expertise in court and out-of-court; 2) creating a toolkit for measuring the impact of cultural expertise; 3) establishing an open access searchable database for the consultation of cases and solutions including cultural expertise; 4) designing a teaching and learning module using the cultural expertise impact toolkit; and 5) formulating policy-making guidelines which include tested solutions for sustainable inclusiveness in Europe.
EURO-EXPERT’s modular team stresses on context-centered knowledge, two ways skill transfer, and trans-local transfer of knowledge. Local stakeholders are empowered to creatively transfer knowledge and collaborating at an international level. Junior team members benefit from EURO-EXPERT as an international springboard for developing an independent career.

The quantitative-led phase of data-collection used three instruments imparted on a digital multilingual platform on which respondents answered in their native language: 1) survey distributed to judges, lawyers, experts, and beneficiaries; 2) collection of case law including CE; and 3) survey of out-of-court sites of CE. Quantitative-led data were verified by a qualitative workshop with experts from state and non-state jurisdictions of the countries of the research who have also collaborated for establishing the indicators of impact of CE. Results are visualised through reports and maps almost real time on our website.

EURO-EXPERT has consolidated an interdisciplinary and intersectional network of partners including both academicians and members of the legal and para-legal professions. These partners contribute on several venues created by EURO-EXPERT: conferences and workshops, academic visiting, mailing lists, website and social media.

EURO-EXPERT has published a total of 30 publications and held or participated to a total of 39 events of dissemination.

NewHoRRIzon selected EURO-EXPERT among the five ERC projects which scored highest in Public Engagement, Gender Equality, Open Access, Science Literacy and Science Education, Ethics and Governance and awarded funds for the development of a website documenting its Responsible Research Innovation Approach.

EURO-EXPERT has hosted 7 visitors: Taina Cooke (Doctoral Student - Finland), Beatriz Carril Barreiro (Assistant Professor - Spain), Sabrina Ciolfi (Lecturer - University of Milan), Lawrence Rosen (Emeritus Professor - Princeton), John Campbell (Emeritus Reader - SOAS), Stanislaw Burdjez (Associate Professor - Poland), and ChorSwang Ngin (Professor - University of Southern California).
EURO-EXPERT has progressed beyond the state on three extents 1) formulation of an integrated definition of CE which is diverse, inclusive, and takes history into critical account, 2) design of the methodological instruments for the assessment of the use and impact of CE, and 3) development of a beneficiary-centered dialogue with the legal and para-legal profession.

1. EURO-EXPERT shows the contemporary evolution and variation of CE as an emergent concept providing a conceptual umbrella to a variety of evolving practices which all include the use of the special knowledge of social sciences for the resolution of conflicts. EURO-EXPERT surveys the application of CE in the legal process and out-of-court with an unprecedented span of fields going from ethno-psychiatry to the recognition of the rights of autochthone minorities including linguistic expertise, historical expertise in situations of transitional justice, and post-colonial reformulation of cultural rights. The particular innovation of the integrated definition of CE is on being an umbrella concept for the development and change of culture-related expert witnessing over the ages, culture-related adjudication, and resolution of disputes, criminal litigation and other kinds of court and out-of-court procedures.

2. EURO-EXPERT has developed a mixed methods data-collection that ground on ethnographic fieldwork but also expand to quantitative data collection. Research methodology has unfolded according to 1) collaboration 2) the primacy of fieldwork data 3) the re-evaluation of the ‘trouble case’ 4) the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, and 5) filming as data collection and dissemination.

3. The combination of interdisciplinary collaboration and the reformulation of legal consciousness as legal awareness have allowed to overcome the longstanding impasse that hindered the dialogue between anthropologists and jurists. The indicators of impact of CE developed on the basis of a collaboration among judges, lawyers, experts and academicians all point at the increasing need for CE in conflict resolution for a more inclusive society.

EURO-EXPERT expects to fine-tune the reformulation of the integrated definition of cultural expertise, further developing methods in the qualitative-led phase of data-collection, and consolidating the dialogue between jurists and anthropologists. The above-mentioned expectations will concretise in the following outputs:

1. Creation of a multilingual legal database allowing for OA and user-friendly access of cases including CE. The innovation of this database is two-fold: a) data will be searchable in 13 languages and across all the jurisdictions in the 15 countries of the research; b) data will be accessible in OA and presented in plain language for lay users as well as professional format and rigorous legal citations for legal professionals.
2. Creation of a toolkit assessing the prospective impact of cultural expertise on the basis of the indicators of impact designed thanks to the combination of quantitative and qualitative led data collection.
3. Collaborative design of a cultural expertise course in two versions: 1) for undergraduate teaching and 2) for professional capacity building.
4. Publication of two special issues on the modern history of CE and a monograph or collected volume on cultural expertise aimed at academic audiences.
5. The activities of EURO-EXPERT will continue to be disseminated on Twitter @ CulturalExperts, on the CulturalExpertise mailing list culturalexpertise@jiscmail.ac.uk, and on the project’s website (https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-and-subject-groups/cultural-expertise-europe-what-useful). More videos will be released on the indicators of impact of CE and data collection in the different countries of the research. Outreach activities such as story-telling on CE are also planned at various schools in Oxfordshire.
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