From Quantitative Fact to Discursive Practice: Techniques for Asserting the Reliability of Anthropological Knowledge in Expert Testimony

Abstract

AbstractUnlike other expert witnesses, cultural anthropologists must not only provide expert evidence on the case but also convince judges of its validity for meeting the Daubert standard. In this article, I juxtapose two expert testimony reports I have written in criminal and asylum cases. For the first, I conducted cultural consensus analysis, a formal quantitative technique, to gather data on beliefs about co‐sleeping behavior among Mexican migrants. For the second, I relied on discursive practice to signal the facts as meeting the standard of evidence. I argue that despite anthropology not being an “exact science,” our locus at the intersection of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities provides us with a range of tools to assert the reliability and validity of our testimony.