How do we imagine the place of courtrooms in relation to society? There have been two dominant ways that ethnographers have viewed trials. The first treats trials as ways of understanding social structures and political power. In relation to terrorism trials, the courtroom becomes the arena in which nationalist politics can be re-enacted. There is the space of a pre-existing society—with all its hierarchies and conflicts—and the court case is then merely affixed to the social. The second way, which has a minor role in scholarship on India, has imagined courtrooms as theatrical spaces in which society is discursively constructed. In this article, I argue that an ethnography of courtrooms can be a way of accessing the space of courtroom on its own terms. I argue that the technologies of law set in place their own relations and forms of sociality and that the courtroom is a world in and of itself. Based on an ethnography of terrorism trials in Delhi, I show how the terrorism trial is not only the arena in which bigger contestations over nationalism and religious identity may play out; it is also the space in which new forms of life specific to the courtroom emerge.

中文翻译：

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技术细节的社会生活：“恐怖分子”生活在德里法院

我们如何想象法庭与社会的关系？民族志学者对审判的看法有两种主要方式。第一种将审判视为理解社会结构和政治权力的方式。就恐怖主义审判而言，法庭成为民族主义政治可以重新上演的舞台。有一个预先存在的社会的空间——有它所有的等级制度和冲突——然后法庭案件只是附加在社会上。第二种方式在印度的学术研究中扮演着次要角色，将法庭想象成社会在其中进行话语建构的戏剧空间。在这篇文章中，我认为法庭民族志可以是一种以自己的方式进入法庭空间的方式。我认为法律技术确立了它们自己的关系和社会形式，法庭本身就是一个世界。基于德里恐怖主义审判的民族志，我展示了恐怖主义审判如何不仅是民族主义和宗教认同的更大争论可能上演的舞台；它也是法庭特有的新生活形式出现的空间。