Reader on Cultural Expertise - Call for Chapters

Cultural expertise is an emergent concept defined as special knowledge provided by various fields in the social sciences for conflict resolution in the form of cultural expert witnessing or cultural argumentations that help deciding authorities for better decision-making (Holden 2011 and Holden 2019).* Cultural expertise connects with the great debates of anthropology regarding the concept of culture, race, ethnicity, gender and allows for a new scrutiny of the potential of social sciences, in particular anthropology, to problem solving. I am planing a collection of essays designed as a trajectory starting from theory to praxis and using socio-legal and critical studies for a reader on cultural expertise whose target audience is undergraduate students in the social sciences. This reader connects with the collaborative design of a course on cultural expertise within the framework of EURO-EXPERT.  

5000 words chapters are solicited on the following non-exhaustive list of topics: current representations of culture and law, race and ethnicity, gender, regulations concerning cultural expert witnessing and mediation from a national and comparative perspective, patterns of litigation involving a sample of multicultural-settings, and more (other topics can also be proposed). Both theory and praxis oriented contributions will be accepted. Theory-chapters should provide a state-of-the-art survey of one of the great debates in the social sciences and highlight how the notion of cultural expertise connects with those as umbrella concept including anthropological experts witnessing, mediation in court and out of court, cultural defence, and more. Praxis-chapters should focus on the application of cultural expertise to a particular field (such as gender rights, migration, indigenous rights, detention, education, health, and more) and offer quantitative and/or qualitative data that support the analysis. Both theory- and praxis- chapters should be accompanied by a list of further readings and can include boxed contents for exercises, multiple choice questions, definitions, and long extracts from leading scholarship.

Prospective authors are requested to send a 800 words proposal and a 250 words BIO to Livia Holden by the 3rd June 2019. Preliminary enquiries are welcome. Readings on cultural expertise are available on request. 

*Holden, L. ed. (2011) Cultural Expertise and Litigation, Aldershort: Routledge and Holden, L. Ed. (2019) Cultural Expertise and Socio-Legal Studies, Bingley: Emeraldinsight.