Ethnographic Insights into the Bureaucratization of Justice in Chile

The Chilean administration of justice has undergone extensive reforms since the 2000s. One key goal of these reforms has been to overcome the rigidity that has been so characteristic of the work of the judiciary in the country. In this presentation, Dr Ignacio Riquelme discusses some of the main findings that the emerging literature on court ethnography has revealed about this reform process. Contrary to expectations of greater flexibility, Chilean courts have shown an increasing tendency towards standardization and bureaucratization in their everyday practice, often undermining their own authority in the eyes of the people who turn to them. In this talk, Dr Riquelme comes back to the development of judicial ethnography in Chile and how this research approach has helped to uncover overlooked aspects of structural judicial reform in Chile. By exploring fundamental aspects of the Chilean court system and a different methodological approach, this talk will be invaluable not only to researchers and practitioners with interest in LatAm law and society issues, but also to those seeking to develop more critical approaches to studying legal processes.’

Dr Ignacio Riquelme graduated in Law and Sociology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, with postgraduate studies in Legal Anthropology at the London School of Economics (MSc) and in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Bristol (PhD), Dr Ignacio Riquelme is part of a new and growing generation of Chilean socio-legal researchers. His research focuses on the everyday workings of justice in Chile, inspired by studies in judicial and state ethnography in Latin America. From this perspective, he has conducted research in the areas of family, criminal, and environmental justice, analysing how major judicial reform processes have been implemented in practice. He currently works as a researcher at the University of O’Higgins, where he teaches courses in Legal Sociology and Methodology of Legal and Social Research. Additionally, he is actively involved in establishing the first law and society association in the country.