1st Edition
Leading Works in Law and Anthropology
The academic disciplines of law and sociocultural anthropology have a long but at times contentious history of drawing on each other in order to study and understand law and human experience in its diverse manifestations. This volume provides an innovative and engaging format by giving established and emerging scholars from diverse jurisdictions the opportunity to discuss and reflect upon what they consider to be a ‘leading work’. The collection offers a unique, multi-perspectival reconsideration of the intellectual history of the field whilst also addressing issues that are at the core of interdisciplinary legal research. Contributions shed light on the changing nature of cross-disciplinary research and collaboration, trace how disciplinary understandings of normativity have cross-fertilised each other, and reflect on choices taken within research on law and anthropology along a continuum of theoretical reflection, critique, engagement, and practical application. The book elaborates on the nature and the boundaries of law and anthropology research, as well as on its likely future development in light of the insights shared by contributors on their chosen leading works. The book will make fascinating reading for researchers and academics in both law and anthropology.
List of Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xi
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xii
Foreword: Leading Works, but in an Unexpected Sense xiii
MARIE-CLAIRE FOBLETS
1 ‘Law and Anthropology’ as Interdisciplinary Encounter: Towards Multi-sited, Situated Knowledge Production 1
LARISSA VETTERS AND ALICE MARGARIA
2 Law Is a Multilevel Cultural Universal: The Theoretical Achievements of Leopold Pospisil’s Anthropology of Law 28
JAMES M. DONOVAN AND TOMAŠ LEDVINKA
3 Law’s Boundaries: Barbara Yngvesson’s Virtuous Citizens, Disruptive Subjects, and the Construction of Community in the Margins of Law 49
SUSAN BIBLER COUTIN
4 Unveiling ‘Everyday Harm’: Mindie Lazarus-Black’s Domestic Violence, Court Rites, and Cultures of Reconciliation 66
RAMONA BIHOLAR
5 The European Court of Human Rights, Upending Migrant Rights: On Marie-Bénédicte Dembour’s When Humans Become Migrants 90
MORITZ BAUMGARTEL
6 Challenging the Depiction of Black Families Under Welfare Legislation in the USA: Carol Stack on All Our Kin 112
ANNE GRIFFITHS
7 Constitutional Law as Moral Insurgency?: Reflections on Kalpana Kannabiran’s Tools of Justice 130
SANDHYA FUCHS
8 A Shout in the Cathedral: Elizabeth Mertz’s The Language of Law School 150
RIAZ TEJANI
9 Turning Legal Doctrine Inside Out: Susanne Baer’s The Citizen in Administrative Law 167
LARISSA VETTERS
10 The Moving of Children, the Travelling of Law: Howell’s The Kinning Of Foreigners 192
NOLA CAMMU
11 A French Private International Law Perspective on ‘Alterity’: Horatia Muir Watt’s Discours sur les méthodes du droit international privé (Des formes juridiques de l’inter-altérité) 209
SANDRINE BRACHOTTE
Index 227
Biography
Alice Margaria is assistant professor of law and co-director of the University Research Priority Program ‘Human Reproduction Reloaded’ at the University of Zurich.
Larissa Vetters is senior researcher in the Department ‘Law & Anthropology’ at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany.
‘Exceptionally curated and framed, Leading Works in Law and Anthropology re-charts in an incredibly productive way the rich and globalised terrain where law and anthropology meet today. An unmissable contribution for legal scholars, legal practitioners, and anthropologists who understand each other as, always situated, intellectual peers.’
Luis Eslava, La Trobe University and University of Kent
‘Leading Works in Law and Anthropology simultaneously introduces the anthropology of law through a selection of key works and imagines how the field might be reconceptualized to better reflect its breathtaking range. Its novel approach –a collection of perspectives on perspectives –will be equally invaluable for the expert and the novice.’
Deepa Das Acevedo, Emory Law.
‘Leading Works in Law and Anthropology is a remarkably innovative and yet immensely practical guide to some of the more important works in the field, introduced and contextualized by a diverse group of scholars. Alice Margaria and Larissa Vetters have done a tremendous service in assembling such a useful volume, which should become essential reading for researchers, students, and others interested in the dynamic relationship between law and anthropology.’
Mark Goodale, University of Oxford and University of Lausanne
