The Emotional Dynamics of Law and Legal Discourse
Two academics and a PhD student from the Law School - Dr Mary Neal, Charlie Irvine and Laurel Farrington - have authored chapters in a prestigious collection just published by Hart Publishing.
The collection, edited by Dr Heather Conway and Dr John Stannard of Queen's University Belfast, is titled 'The Emotional Dynamics of Law and Legal Discourse' and features contributions from a range of leading international scholars of law and emotions.
Irvine and Farrington's chapter, titled 'Mediation and Emotions: Perception and Regulation' proposes that mediation's necessary concern with the emotional domain has much to teach lawyers. It sets out an innovative understanding of mediation as a site for emotion regulation where the mediator, by demonstrating empathy, effectively acts as an attachment figure.
Neal's chapter, titled 'Discovering Dignity: Unpacking the Emotional Content of "Killing Narratives"' builds upon her previously-published work on the nature and role of dignity in law, arguing that paying attention to the emotional content of narratives around killing practices - and particularly, those around end-of-life practices in the healthcare context - may help us to identify dignity-promoting, or dignity-violating attitudes.
