Law and Society Research Methodology
This research cluster offers a hub for both staff and doctoral students to collaborate, to share ideas and to develop innovative methodological approaches as well as showcase critical theoretical approaches that move beyond doctrinal legal analysis to explore the relationship between law and diverse social realities.
It provides a collaborative forum for research development, methodological innovation and postgraduate training. Spanning public and private law, human rights, criminal justice, disability, and regulation of gender and sexualities, it adds to the School’s internationally recognised profile in law and society scholarship.
Dr Abi Pearson is a lecturer in Law at Keele University; her work is focused on the broad intersections between disability and law. Her current work stream is focused on exploring the relationship between access to everyday materialities in realising disability rights beyond the pages of the legislative framework. Abi is currently working on a National Lottery Community Fund project alongside Everyday Plastic, Disability Rights UK and Global Learning London to highlight the impact of current approaches to plastic waste management, environmental policy on economically underserved and diverse communities.
Dr Ezgi Taşcıoğlu is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Keele University and a socio-legal scholar, specialising in law in everyday life, disability law, gender and sexuality, and research ethics and integrity. Ezgi is particularly interested in how legal frameworks are experienced, negotiated and resisted in practice. Her work draws on qualitative and participatory methodologies to generate original empirical insights and to inform socio-legal theory, policy and practice. Her current research, supported by an ESRC New Investigator Grant examines guardianship law, legal capacity, and support in the lives of intellectually disabled people in Turkey.
Dr Fabienne Emmerich is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Keele University with a research interest in individual and collective resistance and the production of alternative/new subjectivities. Her research has centred on penal governance and resistance practices as well as queering prisoners’ rights. Fabienne is a contributor to the Queer Judgments Project.
Dr Sotirios Santatzoglou has a wide range of research interests that are framed by a socio-legal approach. In recent years, his research has addressed topics such as youth institutionalisation, surveillance, dishonesty, and bereavement and end-of-life issues within the context of criminal law and criminal justice. He has organised numerous cross-disciplinary research events in these areas, including seminars, workshops, and conferences on: 'Who knows best: The management of change in criminal justice' (2014); ‘Loss, Bereavement and Compassionate Care: Challenges and Opportunities in the Criminal Justice System’ (2014); ‘Confronting Dishonesty – the Significance of Context in Considering Liability’ (2022); and ‘Law in the Age of Permacrisis’ (2024).
