What next for courtroom special measures? Embodying legal geographies through “appreciative‐assemblage” methodology

Abstract

AbstractCourtrooms globally are being reshaped by (1) (legal) special measures, and (2) increasing voluntary sector involvement. We examine multisectoral efforts to change conditions under which vulnerable people give evidence in Scotland. Vulnerable complainers (in Scotland)/complainants and witnesses are now often shielded by screens and accompanied by volunteer witness supporters when testifying. These developments have important (geo)political implications. However, little scholarship examines the spatiality, materiality, and discursivity of the special measures themselves and/or the relationships between special measures, courts, and the voluntary sector. Addressing this gap, we fuse assemblage methodologies and appreciative inquiry, providing a novel methodological hybrid to underpin forthcoming research examining what constitutes these measures and their relationships with the court voluntary sector. Our “playful experimentation” increases the political momentum of assemblages and adds spatial, material, and discursive perspectives to narrative‐focused appreciative inquiry, to facilitate best evidence and organisational development. Our methodological hybrid increases interdisciplinary possibilities: for embodied legal geography, seeing law as enacted through the spatial, material, and discursive body of a volunteer; and for criminal justice voluntary sector studies, creating a more materially and spatially aware public criminology. This is relevant across interest groups, including those supporting (vulnerable) populations involved in criminal justice; evaluating court reforms; and doing research involving the representational, emotional, and affective body.