CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF LAW AND GOVERNANCE
Jawaharlal Nehru University
SEMINAR SERIES
Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal
On
The Ecology of Spectacle and Procedure in an Indian Family Court
Abstract
This presentation approaches the Indian Family Court hearing ethnographically to reveal how judges, lawyers and litigants make decisions, arguments, and claims within a court distracted by the material-bureaucratic effects of filemaking. Rather than Family Court as an ideal “public sphere” or conversely as a dehumanising bureaucratic regime, I argue that legal proceedings must be seen as a courtroom ecology—even “media ecology”—involving interaction between registers of talk and deliberation and machinic, non-human action such as typing and dictation. An ecological view of the courtroom reveals a varied, interruptive terrain where legal talk and family spectacle take shape within the interstices—such as the pauses and demands—of filemaking. While women’s claims are susceptible to being drowned out, I show how gendered expressions take shape through multiple media—becoming misrecognised, taken-up, or amplified through the gestures of bureaucracy. The paper suggests novel, multi-ontological directions for court ethnography where procedure is shown to be linked with the material and social life present in the court. It also suggests that gendered, intimate claims cannot be seen as a priori to the courtroom environment.
3.00 PM, Friday, 02 February 2018
Conference Room, CSLG, JNU
About the Speaker: Megha Sharma Sehdev is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University, Montreal. She received her PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from the Johns Hopkins University in 2017, and conducted her dissertation research on domestic violence law, court spaces, and everyday life in New Delhi. Her broader research interests are actor-network theory, court ethnography, media and aesthetics, gendered experience, and ethnographic writing.
PLEASE JOIN US FOR TEA AFTER THE SEMINAR
ALL ARE WELCOME
DIRECTIONS: From the JNU main gate (North Gate), proceed straight until you get to a T-junction. Turn left. Continue until you reach a second T-junction. Turn right. Follow the road for just 0.7 km until you see a bus stop labelled ‘Paschimabad’. About 50 m past the bus stop take the first right turn. The CSLG building is on the right at the blind end of the lane. The conference room is on the first floor. A lift is being installed at CSLG and we hope the conference room will be more accessible in some time.
