Law Postgraduate Student Conference: Visualising the Law
On Thursday 27th and Friday 28th October 2016, the Strathclyde Postgraduate Law students welcomed over 60 delegates and speakers from across the globe to their conference, ‘Visualising the Law’. Presenters from the US, India, and across Europe and the UK gave papers on a range of areas including EU law, criminal law, IP law, family law, labour law and jurisprudence.
This year’s conference theme was inspired by Sionaidh Douglas-Scott’s use of images in her book Law after Modernity. Rather than traditional themes or streams, the conference was organised around a set of six images which meant that research presentations did not get ‘shoehorned’ into a specific area. The images were carefully chosen by the conference committee to act as cues in developing papers and presenters were asked to consider the six images in relation to their research and to consider what the images represented to them.
Delegates were welcomed to the conference by Professor Nicole Busby (Head of the Strathclyde Law School) who also accompanied the committee and presenters to a Civic Reception at Glasgow City Chambers on Thursday evening hosted by Bailie Phil Braat on behalf of the Lord Provost. As well as the presentation of PGR work over the two days, Dr Saskia Vermeylen (University of Strathclyde) delivered the keynote address entitled ‘Drawing Lines in the Sand: Performativity of Terra Nullius and Native Title Claims’ and committee member Karen Richmond delivered an interactive skills workshop, 'Visual Methods in Legal Research’ developed in partnership with Professor Amanda Perry-Kessaris of Kent Law School. The workshop utilised visual media, objects, and three dimensional models, in an attempt to explore the potential for non-textual sources to communicate, and facilitate discussion about, our perceptions and expectations of law and legal research. Finally, Dr Sarah Edwards (Associate Dean Postgraduate Research and Director of HaSS Graduate School) closed the conference by thanking the speakers and delegates for making this year’s conference such a success.
The conference committee comprised of Saheed Alabi, Sarah Dalzell, Erin Ferguson, Meryem Horasan, William Rennie, Karen Richmond and Khoranit Tongkay (PhD law researchers within HaSS). The committee is grateful to the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) for supporting the conference through its Small Projects and Events Fund and to the Strathclyde Researcher Development Programme (RDP) which provided funding through the Researcher Innovation Fund (RIF). A special thank you goes to the Law School and HaSS Faculty for their support.
