Liberman2015

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Liberman2015
BibType INCOLLECTION
Key Liberman2015
Author(s) Kenneth Liberman
Title Producing records of testimony: some competent legal methods for incompetent trials
Editor(s) Baudouin Dupret, Michael Lynch, Tim Berard
Tag(s) Ethnomethodology, Law
Publisher Oxford University Press
Year 2015
Language English
City Oxford
Month
Journal
Volume
Number
Pages 115–136
URL Link
DOI 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210243.003.0006
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title Law at Work: Studies in Legal Ethnomethods
Chapter

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Abstract

Taking legal testimony involves the practical task of objectivating conversations and producing a formal record of the proceedings. Replies to questions are allocated to developing a formal record without adequate attention paid to the meaning of a statement for the witness. Courtroom testimony involving traditionally oriented Aboriginal people in Australia’s Western Desert reveals how Aboriginal people are processed through standard legal routines of courtroom interrogation without non-Aboriginal parties recognizing the lack of comprehension by Aboriginal witnesses. Transcripts of trials involving Aboriginal people are examined ethnomethodologically in their interactional details in order to (1) ascertain, turn-by-turn, the horizon of understanding of each party in the proceedings, (2) describe how circumstantial and serendipitous local detail provides the parties with interactive tools, and (3) identify how words are built into testimony as the legal praxis at work. Once produced, the veracity of the legal record can supersede the situational meaning of the proceedings.

Notes