Law and emotion: methods and the field

This special section, comprising four articles, emerged from a workshop titled ‘How to research emotion in and around law’, held at Flinders University, Australia, in November 20221. The workshop brought together 16 researchers (and 15 paper presentations) working in diverse disciplinary contexts – anthropology, creative practice, criminology, cultural studies, history, law, literary studies, media, psychology, sociology and sociolegal studies – all focusing on law and emotion. Emotion is present and significant throughout law, but methodological approaches to studying emotion in and around law remain disparate. The purpose of the workshop was to take stock of methodologies, methods and data that can rigorously account for emotion in legal contexts and develop a vision for more effective cross/inter/multi/trans-disciplinary research approaches.