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'As you set out for Ithaka': Practical, epistemological, ethical, and existential questions about socio-legal empirical research in conflict

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Peer-reviewed

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Article

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Authors

Nouwen, SMH 

Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pThis is the story behind another story. Inspired by the anthropological practice of reflexivity, it traces some practical, epistemological, ethical, and existential questions behind a book based on empirical socio-legal research into international criminal law in situations of conflict. The challenges involved in such research are at times impossible to overcome. Indeed, the challenges may be such that the researcher will never be able to answer her original question fully and confidently. However, challenges can be findings in themselves. They may reveal insights into the role of law in a society, the limitations of vocabularies, the overexposure of international criminal law, and inequalities in global knowledge production. Rather than merely obstructing research into a topical issue, challenges may shift the researcher's attention to other, more fundamental, questions. Nonetheless, understanding challenges as findings does not resolve the existential problem of the researcher's possible complicity in maintaining the very challenges that she analyses and perhaps ambitiously tries to overcome.</jats:p>

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Keywords

reflexivity, socio-legal research, empirical research, international criminal law, research ethics

Journal Title

Leiden Journal of International Law

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0922-1565
1478-9698

Volume Title

27

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)