CENTER FOR LEGAL STUDIES

Legal Studies Research Methods introduces students to research methods used in interdisciplinary legal studies, including jurisprudence and legal reasoning, qualitative and quantitative social science methods, and historical and textual analysis. The course is a prerequisite for the Advanced Research Seminar in Legal Studies, 398-1, - 2, and is intended to prepare students for the design of their own research project to be conducted in 398-1, -2. Through exposure to and engagement with interdisciplinary research methods on law and legal processes, the course will provide students with a deeper understanding of law in its historical and social context. The course will provide students with a set of research tools with which to conduct research on legal institutions. The course builds on content from Legal Studies 206, a prerequisite for 207. While part of the Legal Studies major sequence, the course will enrich the analytic skills of students from many fields who are interested in law or in interdisciplinary research methods. (Pre-Req: Legal_St 206 "Law & Society")

Through the lens of the U.S. 1980 Refugee Act, students in this class will examine the ways in which a national policy, premised on human rights obligations in the 1951 International Convention for the Protection of Refugee and 1967 Protocol, contributes to the lived experience of that policy in localities. We will consider what local understandings of refugee policy can teach us about constitutional governance, federalism, integration and civil society. More broadly, students will gain insight into the complexities of refugee resettlement policy as a durable solution for refugees seeking protection. We will look comparatively at national refugee resettlement and admission policies, but, by focusing on localities, consider the variation of policy and governance across localities in Western Liberal Democracies that have already accepted sizable numbers of refugees and migrants. Local responses fall along a spectrum, at one end welcoming (#refugeeswelcome, sanctuary cities) and at the other end restrictive ("not in our backyard"). The variation of refugee policy and governance in localities has a direct impact on the lived experience of refugee protection, public perception of refugee policies and understandings of membership and belonging in a constitutional democracy. Through archival research surrounding the 1980 Refugee Act and field research in Chicago neighborhoods, students will gain exposure to qualitative interpretive methodology. By curating exhibits around the 1980 Refugee Act and the ways in which that law is lived out in localities, students will become contributors to the creation of a Refugee Policy and Localities digital archive.