Ethnographic Advocacy Against the Death Penalty

SUMMARY This article develops the concept of “ethnographic advocacy” to make sense of the humanizing, open‐ended knowledge practices involved in the defense of criminal defendants charged with capital murder. Drawing from anthropological fieldwork with well‐respected figures in the American capital...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAnthropology and humanism Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 21 - 38
Main Author Cheng, Jesse
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Arlington Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.06.2018
Subjects
Advocacy
Anthropology
Capital punishment
Criminal sentences
Death & dying
death penalty
Defendants
Ethnography
humanization
Mitigation
Murders & murder attempts
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Summary:SUMMARY This article develops the concept of “ethnographic advocacy” to make sense of the humanizing, open‐ended knowledge practices involved in the defense of criminal defendants charged with capital murder. Drawing from anthropological fieldwork with well‐respected figures in the American capital defense bar, as well as my own professional experience as an investigator specializing in death penalty sentencing mitigation, I argue that effective advocacy for life occurs through qualitative knowledge practices that share notable methodological affinities with contemporary anthropological ethnography. The article concludes with a preliminary exploration of what the concept of ethnographic advocacy might reveal about academic anthropology's own advocative engagements.
ISSN:1559-9167
1548-1409
DOI:10.1111/anhu.12193