Negotiating Proximity
Expert Testimony and Collective Memory in the Trials of Environmental Activists in France and the United Kingdom
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6090549 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Geoffrey Hayes (0000-0003-1871-1188, corresponding author), Graeme Hayes |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 208-235 |
| Publication date | 2013-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0265-8240 • E-ISSN: 1467-9930 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/lapo.12004 |
| OpenAlex | W1848128841 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 40 |
This article analyzes the role of expert witness testimony in the trials of social movement actors, discussing the trial of the “Kingsnorth Six” in Britain and the trials of activists currently mobilising against airport construction at Notre Dame des Landes in western France. Though the study of expert testimony has so far overwhelmingly concentrated on fact‐finding and admissibility, the cases here reveal the importance of expert testimony not simply in terms of legal argument, but in “moral” or political terms, as it reflects and constitutes movement cognitive praxis. In the so‐called climate change defence presented by the Kingsnorth Six, I argue that expert testimony attained a “negotiation of proximity,” connecting different types of contributory expertise to link the scales and registers of climate science with those of everyday understanding and meaning. Expert testimony in the trials of activists in France, however, whilst ostensibly able to develop similar bridging narratives, has instead been used to construct resistance to the airport siting as already proximate, material, and embedded. To explain this, I argue that attention to the symbolic, as well as instrumental, functions of expert testimony reveals the crucial role that collective memory plays in the construction of both knowledge and grievance in these cases. Collective memory is both a constraint on and catalyst for mobilisation, defining the boundaries of the sayable. Testimony in trials both reflects and reproduces these elements and is a vital explanatory tool for understanding the narrativisation and communication of movement identities and objectives
Argument (complex analysis · Epistemology · Expert witness · Law and economics · Meaning (existential · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Praxis · Sociology · Data Analysis and Archiving · Education, sociology, and vocational training · French Urban and Social Studies · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
Framing Time in Climate Change Litigation
Climate change litigation
Infrastructures, processes of insertion and the everyday
Environmental Legal Mobilization
Notre‐Dame‐des‐Landes or Redefining the Relationship to Space through the Territorial Embeddedness of a Struggle
Knowledge production through legal mobilization
Coproducing the Endangered Polar Bear
Interactional expertise as a third kind of knowledge
The logic of comparative social Inquiry
Music and Social Movements
Sheepfarming after Chernobyl
States of Knowledge
Scientific Expertise and Comparative Criminal Procedure
The co-production of science and policy in integrated climate assessments
Arctic Indigenous Peoples as Representations and Representatives of Climate Change
The Third Wave of Science Studies
The Eye of Everyman
Political Trials
Legal opportunity structure and social movement strategy in Northern Ireland and southern United States
Polar Bears and Energy-Efficient Lightbulbs
Democratic Legitimacy, Public Justification and Environmental Direct Action
Expert psychological testimony in rape trials
The effects of clinical and scientific expert testimony on juror decision making in capital sentencing
The effects of Daubert on the admissibility of expert testimony in state and federal criminal cases
Misunderstood misunderstanding
Collective Memory and Cultural Constraint
Breaking Down the State
From Larzac to the altermondialist mobilisation
Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method
Movement of Movements
Strange Weather, Again
A New Climate for Society
The Past in the Present
Resurrection and Appropriation
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2023 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |