Suchergebnisse

This article analyzes the different ways that formal legal pluralism is perceived and utilized in Ecuador, where a legal void has resulted from a combination of the constitutional recognition of customary law in 1998 and the subsequent failure to develop coordinating rules that would define the relationship between customary law and national law. Adopting a legal anthropological perspective on the cabildo (village council), this article describes variations in the treatment of different types of "internal conflict," depending on both the seriousness of the case and the parties involved. I argue that constitutional recognition of legal pluralism can work either in favor of or against the legal and political empowerment of indigenous local authorities. While it has encouraged local authorities to extend their jurisdiction, formalized legal pluralism has also led to national political tensions over the exact interpretation of relevant articles in the constitution and attempts to limit indigenous jurisdiction.

Since the 1990s, there has been an increasing interest in mediation in the Netherlands, as part of a set of 'alternative dispute resolution' methods. Politicians, lawyers and practitioners have embraced mediation as a legitimate method for settling disputes, alongside the adjudication of conflicts in courts of law. However, there is a striking lack of literature aimed at theorizing mediation from a legal perspective. This article argues that the legal anthropology literature on disputes and dispute settlement offers useful insights for understanding mediation from a 'legal research' point of view. This is because a lot of current common knowledge on mediation has its roots in a legal anthropological understanding. The argument that is set forth in this article is that the most important lesson that can be learned is that mediation should not be seen in isolation, but as part of a social process.

In this article we reflect on our experiences as supervisors in a field methods course in order to explore how ethnographic research practices can be used as tools in the supervision of students that conduct field research for the first time and as such to provide insights about what constitutes "good supervision." Our reflections follow the three main stages of fieldwork: preparing and designing research, doing fieldwork, and reporting on research, as the role of the supervisor and their relationship with students transforms accordingly. We describe how we use the parallels between "doing research" and "teaching how to do research" as tools for teaching field methods through learning by doing. We pay specific attention to three central elements of ethnographic practice: building rapport, social interaction (the "supervisor effect"), and reflexivity that we use in our supervision.