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.

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.

Cultural Expertise, Law, and Rights introduces readers to the theory and practice of cultural expertise in the resolution of conflicts and the claim of rights in diverse societies. Combining theory and case-studies of the use of cultural expertise in real situations, and in a great variety of fields, this is the first book to offer a comprehensive examination of the field of cultural expertise: its intellectual orientations, practical applications and ethical implications. This book engages an extensive and interdisciplinary variety of topics – ranging from race, language, sexuality, Indigenous rights and women’s rights to immigration and asylum laws, international commercial arbitration and criminal law. It also offers a truly global perspective covering cultural expertise in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America. Finally, the book offers theoretical and practical guidance for the ethical use of cultural expert knowledge. This is an essential volume for teachers and students in the social sciences – especially law, anthropology, and sociology – and members of the legal professions who engage in cross-cultural dispute resolution, asylum and migration, private international law and other fields of law in which cultural arguments play a role. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Drawing upon the work of historians and librarians who teach bibliographic skills and the general literature of bibliographic instruction, this sourcebook discusses a diversity of instructional issues, designs, and concerns. It presents a collection of approaches to teaching bibliographic skills to history students at three levels: undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, and graduate students. Each topic is covered by an expert. The work opens with two chapters discussing (1) Historical Methodologies and Research and (2) History and Interdisciplinary History. Attention is then directed to bibliographic instruction in history, with chapters on finding and using historical materials and bibliographic instruction in history. Other chapters consider special topics--including catalogs and indexes, reference sources, sources for interdisciplinary research, electronic information sources, and using the finding aids to archive and manuscript collections. The work concludes with an extensive and wide ranging annotated bibliography of books, articles, and other literature. Thoughtful and convenient, this book is a rich source of instructional insights, ideas, and designs. In its totality, it presents bibliographic and library research skills as an integral part of the historical enterprise.