to their perspectives and findings. To some degree, they draw on the same methodological approach as well. Both authors made use of the Amherst Seminar on Legal Ideology as they compiled their findings and wrote their books. Both focus on ordinary people in Massachusetts (Merry in an eastern county, Yngvesson in both eastern and western counties). Both focus on the time period of the 1980s. Both are obviously sympathetic to the frustration of the people as they seek justice in the court system. Both are also appreciative of the efforts made by the people as they trudge through the system, some surrendering exhausted and disillusioned to its grinding-down process, some fighting to the end to shape the system to their individual needs.
Both authors state that their studies are "ethnographic" in approach. Merry declares that
I have used an ethnographic approach to explore the legal consciousness of plaintiffs and to observe and report the way the parties, the mediators, and the court officials talk about law, rights, property, problems, and cases. I tell stories about these plaintiff's problems, many of which involve violence, about their experience in court, and about the neighborhoods, communities, and towns they come from (Merry, 1990, 1).
Although Yngvesson's research in eastern Massachusetts is more limited, focusing on the court system, she takes an ethnographic approach similar to Merry's with respect to her work in the western Massachusetts county of Franklin. Yngvesson writes that this ethnographic aspect of her work
involved following 43 complaints back into the neighborhoods where they began in court to speak with participants and other residents. We also interviewed local police, attorneys, a schoolteacher, reporters for the local newspaper, social workers, an official of the local housing bureau, a landlord, a community organizer, housewives, blue-collar workers, and businessman (Yngvesson, 1993, 3).
Me...