Contemporary forensic science has achieved unprecedented visibility as a uniquely compelling example of applied expertise. Dominated by new laboratory-based techniques, practitioners and the public they serve live in an apparent era of forensic infallibility, characterised by precision methodologies deemed capable not merely of solving the most intractable of contemporary criminal cases, but also of assessing, and correcting, conclusions derived from past investigations. This fascination rests on a normative standard of forensic truth, determined in particular by the practices and procedures of DNA typing, which has impoverished our ability to recognize, understand, and explain forms of forensic practice operating in other times and other places. The purpose of this panel is to explore ways of thinking about forensics, past and present, from a broader, historical and trans-national perspective. The papers raise questions about the importance of “location” (temporal and spatial) to the production and enactment of forms of forensic knowledge – differences in legal systems (e.g. burdens of proof, roles of experts and witnesses), in scientific institutional infrastructure and the degrees of credibility that they sustain, in the skills and distribution of investigative personnel, in financial and practical constraints on investigation, and in the popular cultures of forensics and of criminality within and against which forensic practitioners operate.
