“Tips on how to Do Empirical Authorized Research with out Numbers?“
Sida Liu and Sitao Li
Hong Kong Legislation Journal, Vol. 53, Half 3 of 2023, pp.1260 – 1273
Summary: Tips on how to do empirical authorized research with out numbers? This text addresses this methodological query at a crossroads of empirical authorized research in China. It doesn’t purpose to offer a normative defence for the worth of qualitative strategies. As an alternative, we reveal how a ‘scientific flip’ within the 2010s has made empirical authorized analysis in China virtually solely about quantitative analysis after which illustrate how qualitative strategies can even profit from the rise of digital expertise. We draw on three current research as examples to match and distinction the methodological challenges and alternatives for doing empirical authorized research with out numbers: (1) Ke Li’s e book Marriage Unbound for example of ethnography together with archival analysis; (2) Sitao Li’s article ‘Face-Work in Chinese language Routine Prison Trials’ for example of trial video commentary; and, (3) Di Wang and Sida Liu’s article ‘Performing “Artivism”’ for example of on-line ethnography. The dialogue reveals that, regardless of the rising recognition of ‘large information’ computational evaluation lately, quantitative strategies are usually not essentially extra technologically superior than qualitative ones. Know-how-assisted interviews and ethnography can open up many new prospects in information assortment and information evaluation, generally leading to extra thrilling and modern analysis.
