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Cultural expertise in the form of expert opinions formulated by social scientists appointed as experts in the legal process is not different from any other kind of expertise in court. In specialised fields of law, such as native land titles in America and in Australia, the appointment of social scientists as experts in court is a consolidated practice. This Special Issue focuses on the contemporary evolution and variation of cultural expertise as an emergent concept providing a conceptual umbrella for a variety of evolving practices, which all include use of the specialised knowledge of social sciences for the resolution of conflicts. It surveys the application of cultural expertise in the legal process with an unprecedented span of fields ranging from criminology and ethnopsychiatry to the recognition of the rights of autochthone minorities including linguistic expertise, and modern reformulation of cultural rights. In this Special Issue, the emphasis is on the development and change of culture-related expert witnessing over recent times, culture-related adjudication, and resolution of disputes, criminal litigation, and other kinds of court and out-of-court procedures. This Special Issue offers descriptions of judicial practices involving experts in local laws and customs and surveys of the most frequent fields of expert witnessing that are related with culture; interrogates who the experts are, their links with local communities, and also with the courts and the state power and politics; how cultural expert witnessing has been received by judges; how cultural expertise has developed across the sister disciplines of history and psychiatry; and eventually, it asks whether academic truth and legal truth are commensurable across time and space.

law and culture --- human rights --- socio-legal studies --- court cases --- multiculturalism --- National Strategy --- judiciary --- Sweden --- indigenous rights --- Roma --- peyote --- FGM/C --- strategic litigation --- legal anthropology --- cultural test --- cross-cultural dispute resolution --- cultural rights --- cultural experts --- immigrants --- psychiatric evaluation --- controlled substances --- applied anthropology --- law and society --- multicultural societies --- Sami --- First Nations --- expert testimony --- cultural defense --- Italian criminal justice system --- culture --- migration --- criminal anthropology --- Italy --- Bondo --- anthropology of law --- cultural expertise --- entheogens --- experts

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Divorce (Hindu law) --- Divorce --- Law and legislation

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This special issue of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society aims to foster a dialogue that is inclusive, constructive, and innovative in order to lay the basis for evaluating the usefulness and impact of cultural expertise in modern litigation. It investigates the scope of cultural expertise as a new socio-legal concept that broadly concerns the use of social sciences in connection with rights and the solution of conflicts. While the definition of cultural expertise is new, the conflicts it applies to are not, and these range from criminal law to civil law, including international human rights. In this special issue, socio-legal scientists with interdisciplinary backgrounds scrutinize the applicability of the notion of cultural expertise in Europe and the rest of the World. Cases include murder, female genital mutilation, earthquake claims, Islamic law, underage marriages, child custody, adoption, land rights, and asylum. The authors debate on a variety of themes, such as legal pluralism, ethnicity, causal determinism, reification of culture, and the “culturalization” of defendants. The volume concludes with an overview of the ethical implications of the definition of cultural expertise and suggestions for a way forward.

Sociology of law --- Culture and law. --- Law, Criminal Law --- Law & society. --- Law and culture --- Law --- General.