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(CANCELLED) The Sociology of Law Department's Lunch Seminar: VIRTUTRIALS: The elusive role of physicality in virtual trials - Towards a new understanding of legal participation.
The Sociology of Law Department arranges a research seminar series inviting local and international social scientists to present state-of-the-art research within various areas of law and society.
Video links are widely used in courtrooms globally, yet concerns are rising that their lack of physical interaction may threaten the legitimacy and fairness of trials. The VIRTUTRIALS project addresses this issue, proposing that fears around video links may stem less from real impacts and more from a fetishization of physical presence, despite the actual role of physicality in trials being poorly understood. This has important implications for legal security and trust in the justice system, particularly as we approach a shift to fully virtual trials. VIRTUTRIALS is an ERC Starting Grant funded project that aims to identify how the presence or absence of physicality shapes trials and participants' experiences to assess whether trials can retain legitimacy in virtual settings. This project uses an innovative, multi-method approach—including ethnography, interviews, and analyses of judgments—drawing on social science and interactionist theory. In an era of rapid digitalization, where virtual interactions are increasingly complex, VIRTUTRIALS contributes essential insights into how virtual settings influence the dynamics of justice.
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Lisa Flower is an Associate Professor and an associate senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Lund University. She recently received research funding from the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, a prestigious EU grant awarded to early-career researchers. Lisa Flower's research will lead to a better understanding of how trials are affected by virtual elements, such as witnesses participating via video link instead of physically in the courtroom. Lisa Flower hopes to put Lund University on the map for research on virtual justice.
Om evenemanget
Plats:
Room M331, 3rd floor, Allhelgona Kyrkogata 18 (House M), Lund.
Kontakt:
lisa [dot] flower [at] soc [dot] lu [dot] se