Invited Speaker
Associate Professor Florian Grisel
Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies
University of Oxford
The presentation examines how social capital affects the resolution of disputes by focusing on English Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee, sometimes described as “Wikipedia’s Supreme Court.” Quantitative and qualitative data suggests that the Arbitration Committee not only examines the merits of the claims made by the disputants, but also and more crucially considers the position of each disputant within the community of editors in its decision-making process. In doing so, the Arbitration Committee does not simply decide or arbitrate disputes but seeks to attenuate their impact on Wikipedia’s social fabric. This data allows us to revisit sociological debates on the role of social capital, by revealing the ways in which well-connected individuals employ it strategically in order to obfuscate their noncompliance with norms, thus leading to what I call “dispute cancellation.”
About the presenter:
Florian Grisel is Research Fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (SAGE, Strasbourg) and Senior Research Associate at the University of Oxford (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies). Using a methodological approach combining archival research, interviews, and ethnographic work, his research explores the emergence of law beyond the state, in global and local settings.
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This event is part of our regular webinar sessions for social capital researchers including PhD/master students. These sessions include invited presentations from prominent scholars as well as presentations by PhD students and experts in professional practice.
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