Socio-Legal Group
The Cambridge Socio-Legal Group was established in 1997 as an interdisciplinary discussion forum concerned with promoting debate on topical socio-legal issues, including those with relevance to policy-making. It is hosted by the Centre for Family Research, Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology, and International Studies (PPSIS), and by the Faculty of Law. The Group serves to bring together people from different faculties across the University (Law, Criminology, Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Relations, Psychiatry, Biology, Economics, Social Anthropology, and others) as well as prominent socio-legal scholars from other institutions. The Socio-legal Group thus provides a focus for those in the University engaged in socio-legal research, and a basis for linking with the broader world of socio-legal scholarship in the Britain and abroad. The Group also aims to encourage and supports its individual members to work collaboratively, thus fostering inter-disciplinary cross-fertilisations. To this end, the Group holds occasional seminars, at least one a term. Future projects include an interdisciplinary symposium on 'Birth Matters' and possibly one on the 'Home'.
Symposia and Book Projects
The Group is best known outside Cambridge for its successful series of book projects, which have ranged across a wide range of issues. These projects are enhanced by contributors and other discussants coming together in a residential seminar across several days to discuss work in progress, providing participants with the benefit of insights from each others' research. Past projects include:
- What is a Parent? A Socio-Legal Analysis (1999) edited by Andrew Bainham, Shelley Day Sclater and Martin Richards, concerned with legal and social conceptions of parenthood and resulted in publication of the book.
- Body Lore and Laws (2002) edited by Andrew Bainham, Shelly Day Sclater and Martin Richards, on law and the human body.
- Children and their Families: Contact, Rights and Welfare (2003) edited by Andrew Bainham, Bridget Lindley, Martin Richards and Liz Trinder, on contact between parents, children and other family relations.
- Sexuality Repositioned: Diversity and the Law (2004) edited by Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Loraine Gelsthorpe, Martin Johnson and Andrew Bainham.
- Kinship Matters (2006) edited by Fatemeh Ebtehaj, Bridget Lindley and Martin Richards, on evolving notions and practices of kinship in contemporary Britain and the interrelationship of kinship, law and social policy.
- Death Rites and Rights (2007) edited by Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Fatemeh Ebtehaj, Jonathan Herring, Martin Johnson and Martin Richards, examining the ways in which death is experienced in various aspects of modern society.
- Regulating Autonomy: sex, reproduction and families (2009) edited by Fatemeh Ebtehaj, Emily Jackson, Martin Richards and Shelley Day Sclater
- Sharing Lives, Dividing Assets: An Inter-Disciplinary Study (2009) edited by Joanna Miles and Rebecca Probert.
- Birth Rites and Rights (2011) edited by Fatemah Ebtehaj, Jonathan Herring, Martin H Johnson and Martin Richards, a multi-disciplinary collection of essays concerned with the varying circumstances, manner, timing and experiences of birth.
The Group’s most recent project was a symposium on Intoxication: Problematic Pleasures, held in March. This was a hugely exciting symposium which focused on medical expertise and understandings of intoxication in historical perspective, health expertise in the 20th century, expert and lay knowledge’s in exculpatory intoxication in criminal law, the relation of inebriety to insurance, drinking and state formation, the cultural domestication of intoxicants, binge drinking, self and intoxicant experience: a scientific perspective and popular print and Renaissance drinking cultures, embodied memory and intoxication problems, 'losing control' in early modern literature and praxis, interaction and the loss of self-control. The lively debate which ensued reflected interest from law, sociology, history, criminology, psychology, cultural theory, and health studies. A book is in preparation, edited by P. Withington, D. Weinberg, C. Regan and J. Herring. Look out for it in due course!
Occasional Seminars
The Group also holds occasional seminars during the year. Recent seminars have included:
- Anthony Good, Professor Emeritus, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, on Witness Statements and Credibility Assessments in the British Asylum Courts (jointly organised with the Department of Social Anthropology)
- Robert Wintemute, Professor of Human Rights Law, School of Law, King’s College London, on Lesbian and Gay Parenting and European Human Rights Law: When will France catch up with the UK? (jointly organised with the Centre for Family Research)
- Dr Liz Hales, Senior Research Associate, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, on Research on the Criminalisation of Migrant Women
- Dr Bronwyn Naylor, Senior Lecturer in Law at Monash University, Australia, Co-Chair of that University's Human Research Ethics Committee, and Chief Investigator on a major Australian research project Applying Human Rights Legislation In Closed Environments: A Strategic Framework For Managing Compliance’, on Monitoring for human rights in places of detention: NPMs and IMBs – how effective are they in securing human rights?
- David Howarth, Reader in Private Law, Fellow of Clare College, and previous Member of Parliament for Cambridge, during which time he served as a member of the Justice and Environmental Audit Select Committees and as Shadow Energy Minister and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice for the Liberal Democrats, on The Decline and Fall of Lawyers in the House of Commons and what it means for British Politics
For Further Information, Contact:
- Chair of the Socio-Legal Group: Professor Loraine Gelsthorpe, (Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Institute of Criminology) lrg10@cam.ac.uk.
- Vice Chair of the Socio-Legal Group: Ms Jo Miles, University Senior Lecturer in Law, Faculty of Law, jkm33@cam.ac.uk.