For law & society scholars, empirically studying the law in action is core business. Over the years I have developed myself as a qualitative scholar, as my research questions are mostly addressing people’s perceptions and experiences. Through observations, (expert)interviews, focus group interviews as well as the analysis of documents and discourse, I have studied discrepancies between a broad variety of laws, policies and rules ‘in the books’ and the messy reality of the implementation and enforcement of these same laws, policies and rules in practices. My research is often also comparative in nature as I use various case studies between which and within which I compare.

I am more than happy to chat with anyone about questions concerning qualitative research design and data collection, but also about getting and managing research access as well as writing up and publishing the results of qualitative research.