Hosted by the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, the ASA2021 Conference focused on the topic of responsibility. Jonas Bens and his colleagues, Sigurd D’hondt and Baudouin Dupret, presented in the Panel Evid02a which addressed issues of representation and responsibility through the exploration of the anthropological significance, political relevance, and theoretical/methodological challenges of community-focused legal archives. Jonas Bens represented the A06 project by co-presenting the paper „The Ethnography of Legal Texts: A Proposal for a Transdisciplinary Analysis of Ajudication Before the International Criminal Court“ on April 1.

Anthropologists are dispassionate about paying attention to legal texts. By adopting an inquisitive stance with regard to doctrinal texts, legal decisions, case files, and court transcripts, the authors proposed a new approach to ethnographical investigation, one properly engaging the workings of the law without just glancing over the legal texts concerned.