Legal research is usually done at a desk, discussions are possible by telephone and even archives are usually accessible online, and most work is based on academic literature. But what insights, perspectives and research subjects are missed by legal research for which researchers do not leave their desks? And how can the gaps be filled? One possibility for empirical research into the law is the method of ethnography. The starting point for legal ethnographic research is a critique of legal research, which often examines law from the same
the same direction: as a text1, as positive law, as “applicable law from the perspective of the state “2, as uniform law, as formal law. Legal ethnographic research entails a departure from this legal positivist uniformity of law, legal dogmatics as the supreme discipline and interpretation as the highest goal – and thus also as a methodological limit. It opens the door to other perspectives, topics and problems. It is suitable for theoretically and empirically based critiques of legal orders and shows perspectives for an emancipatory change in the law.

In Bahmer/Barth/Franz u.a. (eds.) Interaktionen: Internationalität, Intra- und Interdisziplinarität, 263-278. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

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