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POLS1321 - Social Anthropology of Law and Culture
[1 Q. • 30 Th. • 3 ECTS - credits]
| Lecturer :
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Zitouni Benedikte |
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| Language of instruction :
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English |
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| Learning outcomes :
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The overall aim of the course is to get a better understanding of law in that it is a collective practice and a ritual performance which have a great impact on those who are involved, impact that must be assessed well beyond the somewhat abstract notion of justice. |
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| Prerequisites :
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None |
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| Course contents :
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The course focuses on the explanatory powers of ethnography. Ethnography - detailed empirical study based on fieldwork - is drawn from social anthropology - the study of social groups - and is perhaps the discipline's most important asset today. Anthropological fieldwork discloses subtle realities and allows for complex descriptions that reinvigorate theoretical considerations on law. It complements philosophical and historical analyses of law. This is, in any case, and quite convincingly, claimed by a thriving field in American academia: the Legal Studies and more particularly, Legal Anthropology or Anthropology of Law.
The course will explore that field and the work done by other mind-like contenders, i.e. documentarists and journalists who also claim the explanatory powers of ethnographic investigation. It'll provide an in-depth analysis of empirical monographs that were published or released in recent years, no earlier than 2000, by fore-front academic presses or by awarded production houses. Covered topics are: transitional justice (Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South-Africa, Gacaca courts in Rwanda), customary law (tribal mediation, Native American Courts, Islam law) and applied law (in the fields of global finances, State administration and immigration).
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| Mode of delivery :
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Lectures. With two invited lecturers and active use of iFUSL (articles, hyperlinks, extra info, ...). |
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| Assessment methods and criteria :
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Students must read one book, thoroughly (see reading list below, compulsory reading). There will be no syllabus but handouts will be given during class. An oral exam will assess the compulsory reading as well as the material covered in class.
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| Recommended or required reading :
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Compulsory books (only one must be chosen):
Coutin, Susan, 2000. Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants' Struggles for U.S. Residency. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Krog, Antjie, 2000 (1998), Country of my skull: guilt, sorrow and the limits of forgiveness in the new South Africa. New York, Three River Press.
Richland, Justin, 2008. Arguing with Tradition: the language of law in Hopi Tribal Court. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Riles, Annelise, 2011. Collateral knowledge: Legal reasoning in Global Financial Markets. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Further reading:
Abel, Rick, 1995. The Law and Society Reader, New York, New York University Press.
Aghion, Anne, 2009. My neighbor, my killer. Paris: Dominant 7 & Gacaca Productions.
Aghion, Anne, 2009. The notebooks of memory. Paris: Dominant 7 & Gacaca Productions.
Cole, Catherine, 2010. Performing South Africa's Truth Commission: Stages of transition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Darian-Smith, Eve, 2007. Ethnography and Law, Alderston, Ashgate Publishing.
Darian-Smith, Eve, 1999. Bridging divides: the Channel Tunnel & English legal identity in the new Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Comaroff, Jean & John Comaroff, ed., 2006. Law and Disorder in the Postcolony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hirsch, Susan, 1998. Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hund, John, ed., 2003. Witchcraft Violence and the Law in South Africa. Pretoria: Protea.
Khaled, Abou El Fadl, 2004. Islam and the Challenge of Democracy, Princeton University Press.
Khaled, Abou El Fadl, 2001. Rebellion and violence in Islamic law. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Latour, Bruno, 2009 (2002). The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d'Etat - Supreme Court of Administrative Law. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Merry, Sally, 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: translating international law into local justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Merry, Sally, 2000. Colonizing Hawai'i. The Cultural Power of Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Moore, Sally Falk, 2005, ed.. Law and Anthropology: a Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Nader, Laura, 2002. The Life of the Law: Anthropological Projects. Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press.
Riles, Annelise, 2000. The network inside out. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Rockefeller, Terry Kay, 2010. Little Injustices: Laura Nader looks at the law. Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources.
Rosen, Lawrence, 2006. Law as Culture: an invitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rosen, Lawrence, 2000. The Justice of Islam: Comparative Perspectives on Islamic Law & Society. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.
Sanders, Mark, 2007. Ambiguities of witnessing: law and literature in the time of a truth commission. Stanford: Stanford California Press.
Sarat, Austin, ed., 2004. Blackwell Companion to Law and Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Starr, June & Mark Goodale, 2002. Practicing Ethnography in Law: New Dialogues, Enduring Practices. New York, Palgrave & St. Martin's.
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