演講摘要：
Set against the backdrop of an extraordinary wave of litigation against Chinese corporations in Ethiopia, Immunity on Trial probes the question of immunity in everyday encounters steeped in highly asymmetrical power relations. Political and legal immunity are justified by the principle that certain social aims outweigh the value of imposing liability. To be exempt from the rules, however, is a privilege granted to or demanded by the powerful, one that is shaped by global inequalities.
Drawing on observations from the courthouse, interviews with litigants, judges, and court support staff, and analyses of case files, Miriam Driessen demonstrates how immunity is debated and delegitimized, or affirmed, by those who fight, exact, grant, or weigh it. From the construction site to the police station, from the registrar’s office into the courtroom, she documents tussles over immunity, unravelling the politics of dignity on which they are founded.
作者簡歷：
Miriam Driessen completed her doctoral studies at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, in 2015. She went on to a role as a visiting research fellow at Peking University before returning to the University of Oxford as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and Jesus College.
Drawing on extensive ethnographic field research in Ethiopia and China, Miriam Driessen's work explores the local manifestations of global transformations brought about by China's growing international presence. She is interested in migration, labour, gender and sexuality, language, and law.
She is the author of Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness: Chinese Road Builders in Ethiopia (2019) and The Restless Earth: Rural China in Transition (2018), runner-up of the Bodley Head Financial Times Essay Prize.
