Seeing the Case Clearly: File‐Work, Material Mediation, and Visualizing Practices in a Dutch Criminal Court. Issue 4 (18th October 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: van Oorschot, Irene
• Is Part Of: Symbolic interaction. Volume 37:Issue 4(2014)
• Page Start: 439
• Page End: 457
• Publication Date: 2014-10-18
• Subjects: Symbolic interactionism -- Periodicals; Interactionnisme symbolique -- Périodiques; 302
• DOI: 10.1002/symb.126
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0195-6086

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="symb126-abs-0001"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p id="symb126-para-0002">In Dutch criminal courts, judges and their assisting clerks spend significant amounts of time doing file‐work in preparation for the court hearing: a practice they often call "visualizing the case." This practice is distributed over clerks and judges and materially mediated: the legal case file enters into face‐to‐file interaction as both a text and a material object. This article aims to unpack what techniques clerks and judges draw on in order to come to "see the case clearly, " while at the same time it elaborates on the renegotiations of these largely paper‐based practices when court workers are confronted with the digitization of case files.</p> </abstract>