Documentary Law Stories

Abstract

The paper presents an approach for exploring the relations between documentary and law. It focuses on the Australian context, where these relations have not been widely studied. The approach focuses on four considerations: the use of documentary techniques, the social relationships of filmmaking, understandings of legal processes, and the relations of law to other forms of knowledge and social regulation. The paper illustrates the approach by looking at several documentaries that deal with relations between the common law and Indigenous law and culture. The examples show that documentary law stories are a valuable means for understanding cultural, historical and political problems that have their day in court.