Awards
- Joint winner of K.D. Srivastava Prize 2012 (Canada)
Overview
In many western countries, judicial decisions are based on “black letter law” – text-based, well-established law. Within this tradition, testimony based on what witnesses have heard from others, known as hearsay, cannot be considered as legitimate evidence. This interdiction, however, presents significant difficulties for Aboriginal plaintiffs who rely on oral rather than written accounts for knowledge transmission. This important book breaks new ground by asking how oral histories might be incorporated into the existing court system. Through compelling analysis of Aboriginal, legal, and anthropological concepts of fact and evidence, Oral History on Trial traces the long trajectory of oral history from community to court, and offers a sophisticated critique of the Crown’s use of Aboriginal materials in key cases. A bold intervention in legal and anthropological scholarship, this book is a timely consideration of an urgent issue facing Indigenous communities worldwide and the courts hearing their cases.
Full Product Details
Author: Bruce Granville Miller
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
Imprint: University of British Columbia Press
Weight: 0.440kg
ISBN: 9780774820707
ISBN 10: 0774820705
Pages: 212
Publication Date: 08 May 2011
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Awaiting stock
The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you.
Reviews
Oral History on Trial is a long overdue and important book with huge potential to shift the debates concerning the role of Indigenous oral histories and their narrators in the Canadian courts and beyond. -- Wendy Wickwire, The Johns Hopkins University Press Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Vol. 14 No. 3
Thoroughly documented and clearly written, Oral History on Trial is sure to become a leading work in the field. It discusses the standards considered authoritative when undertaking research about Aboriginal peoples and it scrutinizes the way in which law and the courts deal with Aboriginal oral narratives. Raising and resolving key issues about the admissibility and weight of evidence in courtrooms, it is an invaluable resource for judges, lawyers, and legal scholars, as well as anthropologists, historians, and Indigenous rights researchers. - John Borrows, author of Drawing Out Law: A Spirit's Guide
Author Information
Bruce Granville Miller is a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia.
