The CSLS is delighted to announce that it has been awarded a prestigious British Academy International Writing Workshop grant, in partnership with colleagues from the University of Johannesburg and the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.
The two-year project, titled “Crafting Socio-Legal Methods: Local Realities and Global Debates,” will involve CSLS colleagues, Linda Mulcahy, Caitlyn McGeer, Florian Grisel, and Nicole Stremlau, working with early career socio-legal researchers from across Africa.
Our focus is on promoting discussions about research methods being used in the global South, addressing epistemological inequalities, and fostering South-South research. The project aims to bolster accounts of African-specific methodological practices of emerging scholars and facilitate the publication of this work in collaboration with the Journal of Law and Society and the South African Journal of Human Rights.
Despite growing demand by governments, legal bodies, and the private sector to understand more deeply how law works in practice, teaching on research methods is marginalised within law faculties. This is particularly true for institutions in Africa, where research methods find little space in law school curricula. As such, this project will play an important role in promoting critical reflections about research methods and providing early-career researchers from the global south with the skills they need to publish socio-legal work in leading journals.