An article written by Kent legal academic Professor Amanda Perry-Kessaris has won the Socio-Legal Article Prize 2015.
The article, ‘The case for a visualised economic sociology of legal development’, originally published in the journal Current Legal Problems (Vol 67), was selected by the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) as an outstanding piece of socio-legal scholarship.
In the article, Professor Perry-Kessaris explores how an interdisciplinary, econo-socio-legal approach to legal development could be radically improved using graphic design techniques such as typography and information design.
Professor Perry-Kessaris said: ‘The article built on a Journal of Law and Society-funded workshop on Economic Sociology of Law I organised in 2012 with Diamond Ashiagbor and Prabha Kotiswaran, and on the PG Certificate I did in Design for Visual Communication at London College of Communication (part-funded by Kent Teaching and Learning).
‘The ideas in the article are currently reflected in an LLM module Economic Sociology of Law (as far as I know the only such module in the world) and in the online mini design show I held in November on What can graphic design reveal about law?
Professor Perry-Kessaris previously won the Socio-Legal Article Prize in 2004 for ‘Finding and facing facts about legal systems and foreign direct investment in South Asia’, an article published in Legal Studies (Vol 23), the journal of the Society of Legal Scholars: ‘That piece was built on what I learned in a PG Certficate in Economics that I did part time, and it is where I began to explore the application of quantitative methods to law.
‘Today that interest is reflected in a collaboration with the Kent’s Nuffield Foundation-funded Q-Step Centre to introduce quantitative methods into LW313 Critical Introduction to law, an undergraduate module.’
It is the second consecutive year an academic from Kent Law School has won the Socio-Legal Article Prize; last year, the prize was won by PhD student (and alumna) Sarah Keenan for her article ‘Property as governance: time, space and belonging in Australia’s Northern Territory intervention’ in the Modern Law Review.
The field of legal development is a major focus of Professor Perry-Kessaris’s current research. She has a particular interest in exploring the potential of visual communication at every stage of the legal research process. Examples of her work with graphic design can be found on her blog, Approaching the econo-socio-legal, and on her online design portfolio.
Professor Perry-Kessaris is also the academic coordinator for a collaborative project called Thinking into | about practice which asks academics and practitioners to use images and text to reflect upon their experience in the field of law and development.
Professor Perry-Kessaris studied law, economics, ethnography and graphic design before joining Kent in 2013. To learn more about her publications and research, visit her staff profile page.