Abstract
Sociologists tend to speak of ethnographic methods as standing in contrast to the work of our “number crunchers” who seek to test hypotheses by using samples called for by statistical models. Our embrace of ethnography (or our more general term, “field methods”) has roots in a sociological tradition, “symbolic interaction,” which emphasizes the relationship between perceptions of reality and actions based on those perceptions. Sociological methods such as participant observation, therefore, are justified on the grounds that one must “see the world as one’s subjects see it” in order to understand the choices they make, as inferred from their actions.
Chapter originally presented at the June 1998 Annual Meetings of the Law and Society Association in Aspen, Colorado.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Becker, Howard S. 1951 “The Professional Dance Musician and His Audience.” American Journal of Sociology 57: 136–144.
Becker, Howard S. 1953 “Becoming a Marihuana User.” American Journal of Sociology 59: 235–243.
Becker, Howard S. 1963 Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.
Becker, Howard S. 1982 Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Becker, Howard S. et al. 1961 Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Engel, David M. 1984 “The Oven-Birds Song: Insiders, Outsiders, and Personal Injuries in an American Community.” Law & Society Review, 18(4): 549–579.
Ewick, Patricia and Silbey, Susan 1998 The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Greenhouse, Carol 1986 Praying for Justice: Faith, Order and Community in an American Town. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Felstiner, William 1974 “Influences of Social Organization on Dispute Processing,” Law and Society Review, 9: 63.
Goffman, Erving 1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Haley, John O. 1978 “The Myth of the Reluctant Litigant and the Role of the Judiciary in Japan.” Journal of Japanese Studies 4: 359–390.
Haley, John O. 1991 Authority Without Power: Law and the Japanese Paradox. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hamilton, V. Lee and Sanders, Joseph 1992 Everyday Justice: Responsibility and the Individual in Japan and the United States. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Hosteder, John 1993 Amish Society (4th ed.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press
Kawashima, Takeyshi 1963 “Dispute Resolution in Contemporary Japan.” In A. T. von Mehren (ed.), Law in Japan: The Legal Order of a Changing Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kidder, Robert 1973 “Courts and Conflict in an Indian City: A Study in Legal Impact.” Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, 11 (2). Reprinted 1987 in Yash Ghai, Robin Luckham, and Francis Snyder (eds.), The Political Economy of Law: A Third World Reader. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Kidder, Robert and John Hosteder 1990 “Managing Ideologies: Harmony as Ideology in Amish and Japanese Societies.” Law and Society Review 24: 895–922.
Kidder, Robert and Setsuo Miyazawa 1993 “Long-Term Strategies in Japanese Environmental Litigation,” Law and Social Inquiry, 18(4): 605–627.
Kraybill, Donald B. 1989 The Riddle of Amish Culture. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962, 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Liebow, Elliot 1993 Tell Them Who I Am: The Lives of Homeless Women. New York: Free Press.
Nader, Laura 1990 Harmony ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Mead, George Herbert 1962, orig. 1934 Mind, Self & Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, Charles W. Morris (ed.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Murdock, George Peter 1960 Ethnographic Bibliography of North America. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files.
Ragin, Charles C. and Howard S. Becker 1992 What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ramseyer, Mark J. 1988 “Reluctant Litigant Revisited: Rationality and Disputes in Japan.” Journal of Japanese Studies 14(1).
Schutz, Alfred 1978 The Theory of Social Action: The Correspondence of Alfred Schutz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Schutz, Alfred and Aron Gurwitsch. 1989 Philosophers in Exile: The Correspondence of Alfred Schutz and Aron Gurwitsch, 1939–1959, Richard Grathoff, ed.; J. Claude Evans, trans.; foreword by Maurice Natanson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Taylor, Jill M., Carol Gilligan, and Amy M. Sullivan 1995 Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationship. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wagatsuma, Hiroshi and Arthur Rosett 1986 “The Implications of Apology: Law and Culture in Japan and the United States,” Law & Society Review 20(4): 461–498.
Weber, Max 1958, orig. 1918 “Science as a Vocation” In H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 129–156.
Wolcott, Harry F. 1995 The Art of Fieldwork. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Yngvesson, Barbara 1997 “Negotiating Motherhood: Identity and Difference in ‘Open’ Adoption” Law & Society Review 31(1): 31–80.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2002 June Starr and Mark Goodale
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kidder, R.L. (2002). Exploring Legal Culture in Law-Avoidance Societies. In: Starr, J., Goodale, M. (eds) Practicing Ethnography in Law. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-06573-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-06573-5_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-4039-6070-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-06573-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)