Law in Society 2017/18

Readings and seminar topics

General reading:
Galligan, DJ. 2007. Law in Modern Society Oxford: University Press.
Tamanaha, Brian. 2001. A General Jurisprudence of Law and Society. Oxford: University Press.
Pirie, Fernanda. 2013. The Anthropology of Law. Oxford: University Press.

Michaelmas Term 2017

1 What is the study of ‘law in society’?

Galligan, DJ. 2007. Law in Modern Society Oxford: University Press. [Chapters 1, 2, and 6]
Cotterrell, Roger. 2004. ‘Law in Social Theory and Social Theory in the Study of Law’ in Sarat, Austin
(ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society. Oxford: Blackwell. [Chapter 2]
Finnis, John. 1980. Natural Law and Natural Rights. Oxford: Clarendon. [Chapter 1]
Dworkin, Ronald. 2006. Justice in Robes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Introduction]

2 Durkheim: law and social solidarity

Durkheim, Emile. 1984 [1893]. The Division of Labour in Society. (WD Halls trans.) Basingstoke:
Macmillan. [Ch. 1]
Ehrlich, Eugen. 1936 [1913]. Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press. [Ch. 21]
Raz, Joseph. 1972. ‘On the functions of law’ in Simpson, AWB, Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence.
Oxford: University Press. [Chapter 11]
Bernstein, Lisa. 1992. ‘Opting out of the legal system: extralegal contractual relations in the diamond
industry’ Journal of Legal Studies 21: 115.

3 Weber: law and the rule of law

Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society (G. Roth and C. Wittich, trans.) Berkeley: University of
California Press. [Vol 1: pp. 23–38, 212–26, 311–37]
Tamanaha. 2001. A General Jurisprudence of Law and Society. Oxford: University Press. [Ch. 2]
Tamanaha, Brian. 2004. On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory. Cambridge: University Press.
[Introduction, ch 9, ch 11]

4 Hart: law as rules

Hart, HLA. 2012 [1961]. The Concept of Law (3rd ed.) Oxford: University Press. [Chs 1, 2, 5]
Green, Leslie. 2012. ‘Introduction’ in Hart, HLA, The Concept of Law. [esp. pp. xliv–xlviii]
Galligan, DJ. 2007. Law in Modern Society Oxford: University Press. [Ch. 3]
Tamanaha, Brian. 2001. A General Jurisprudence of Law and Society. Oxford: University Press. [Ch. 6]
Twining, William. 2009. General Jurisprudence. Cambridge: University Press. [Ch. 4]
Simpson, AWB. 1972. ‘The Common Law and Legal Theory’ in his Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence.
Oxford: University Press.

Hilary term 2018

1 Identifying law in non-western societies.

Malinowski, B. 1926. Crime and custom in savage society. London: Kegan Paul [esp. chs. I, IV, X, XI,
XIII]
Moore, Sally Falk. 1973. ‘Law and social change: the semi-autonomous social field as an appropriate
subject of study.’ Law and Society Review, 719-46 (and in Moore, Law as process: an
anthropological approach).
Wormald, Patrick. 1999. Legal culture in the early Medieval West. London: The Hambledon Press. [Ch
1]
Messick, B. 1986. The Mufti, the text and the world: legal interpretation in Yemen, Man 21: 102–19.

2 Order and disputes

Roberts, Simon. 1983. The study of dispute: anthropological perspectives. In J. Bossy (ed.) Disputes
and Settlements. CUP
Harrison, Simon. 1993. The mask of war. Manchester University Press. [Introduction, esp. pp. 1-6,
21–26]
Stephens, Thomas. 1992. Order and discipline in China: the Shanghai Mixed Court 1911–27.
[Introduction]
Clanchy, Michael. 1983. ‘Law and Love in the Middle Ages’, in J. Bossy (ed.) Disputes and
Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West.
Strathern, Marilyn. 1985. ‘Discovering social control’, Journal of Law and Society, 12: 111–34.

Other readings
Comaroff, John and Simon Roberts. 1981. Rules and processes: the cultural logic of dispute in an
African context. Chicago University Press. [Introduction, esp. to p. 21]
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940. The Nuer: a description of the modes of livelihood and political
institutions of a Nilotic people. Oxford: OUP. [Ch 4]
Pirie, Fernanda. 2007 ‘Order, individualism and responsibility: contrasting dynamics on the Tibetan
plateau.’ In K. von Benda-Beckmann and F. Pirie (eds) Order and disorder: anthropological
perspectives, Oxford: Berghahn’.

3 Legal pluralism

Merry, Sally Engel. 1988. ‘Legal pluralism’. Law and Society Review, 22: 869-96.
Fuller, Chris. 1994. ‘Legal anthropology, legal pluralism and legal thought’. Anthropology Today
10(3): 9-12.

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Roberts, Simon. 2005. ‘After government: on representing law without the state.’ Modern Law
Review 68(1): 1-24.
Tamanaha, Brian. 2008. ‘Understanding Legal Pluralism: Past to Present, Local to Global’ Sydney Law
Review 30: 375–411.

Other readings on legal pluralism

Griffiths, John. 1986. ‘What is legal pluralism?’ Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 19: 1-47.
Griffiths, Anne. 2002. ‘Legal pluralism’. In An introduction to law and social theory, R. Banakar and
M. Travers (eds). Oxford: Hart.
von Benda-Beckmann, Franz and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann. 2006. ‘The dynamics of change and
continuity in plural legal orders.’ Journal of Legal Pluralism, 54/54: 1-44 [pp. 11-17].
Berman, Paul. 2012. Global Legal Pluralism: a jurisprudence of law beyond borders. CUP
Berman, Paul. 2007. A pluralist approach to international law. Yale Journal of International Law 32:
301–329
Menski, Werner. 2006. Comparative Law in a Global Context. CUP.
de Sousa Santos, Boaventura. 1987. Law: a map of misreading. Journal of Law and Society 14: 279–
302.

4 Legalism: rules and categories

Fallers, Lloyd. 1969. Law without precedent. Chicago: University Press. [ch. 1].
Merry, Sally. 1990. Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness Among Working-Class
Americans. Chicago: University Press. [ch 1]
Cheyette, Frederic. 1970. ‘Suum cuique tribuere’ French Historical Studies 6(3): 287–99.
Honoré, A. M. 1977. ‘Real laws’. In P. Hacker and J. Raz (eds) Law, morality and society. Oxford:
University Press.
Goody, Jack. 1986. The logic of writing and the organization of society. Cambridge: University Press.
[Chapter 4, ‘The letter of the law’]

Others on legal language

Schauer, Frederick. 2009. Thinking Like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [ch 6]
Conley, John and William O'Barr. 1990. Rules Versus Relationships: The Ethnography of Legal
Discourse. Chicago: University Press.
Mertz, Elizabeth. 2007. The Language of Law School. OUP
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society (G. Roth and C. Wittich, trans.) Berkeley: University of
California Press. [pp. 654–58]

5 Legal borrowing and imposition

Nader, Laura. 2005. ‘The Americanization of international law’, in F. and K. von Benda-Beckmann and
A. Griffiths (eds), Mobile people, mobile law. Ashgate.
Cohn, Bernard. 1989. ‘Law and the colonial state in India’, in J. Starr and J. Collier (eds) History and
power in the study of law. Cornell.

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Scheele, Judith. 2012. ‘Rightful measures: irrigation, land, and the shariʿah in the Algerian Touat, in
P. Dresch and H. Skoda (eds), Legalism: Anthropology and History. OUP.
Riles, Annelise. 2011. Collateral knowledge: legal reasoning in global financial markets. London:
University of Chicago Press. [Ch. 5].
Watson, Alan. 2001. The Evolution of Western Private Law. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. [Ch *]
Pirie, Fernanda. 2013. The Anthropology of Law. OUP [Ch. 7].

6 Human rights: theory and practice.

Wilson. R. (ed.) 1997. Human rights, culture and context: an introduction. London: Pluto Press.
Merry, Sally. 2003. Human rights law and the demonization of culture. POLAR 26(2): 55–76
Nathan, Andrew. 1986. ‘Sources of Chinese rights thinking’, in R. Edwards et al. Human rights in
contemporary China.

On vernacularization
Merry, Sally. 1997. ‘Legal pluralism and transnational culture: the Ka Ho’okolokolonui Kanaka Maoli
Tribunal, Hawai’i, 1993' in R. Wilson (ed.) Human rights, culture and context. London: Pluto.
Goldstein, Daniel M. 2013. Whose vernacular? Translating human rights in local contexts. In M.
Goodale (ed.) Human Rights at the Crossroads. Oxford: University Press.

On criminal laws
Kelly, Toby. 2013. Prosecuting human rights violations: universal jurisdiction and the crime of
torture. In M. Goodale (ed.) Human Rights at the Crossroads. Oxford: University Press.

And
Englund, Harri. 2013. Cutting human rights down to size. In M. Goodale (ed.) Human Rights at the
Crossroads. Oxford: University Press.
Strathern, Marilyn. 2004. Losing (out on) intellectual resources. In A. Pottage & M. Mundy (eds) Law,
anthropology and the constitution of the social.

7 Law and justice

Pirie, Fernanda and Judith Scheele. 2014. Justice, Community, and Law. In Pirie & Scheele (eds)
Legalism: Community and Justice. OUP
Pirie, Fernanda. 2014. Community, Justice, and Legalism: Elusive Concepts in Tibet. In Pirie & Scheele
(eds), Legalism: Justice and Community. OUP.
Clarke, Morgan. 2012. The Judge as Tragic Hero: Judicial Ethics in Lebanon’s Shari‘a Courts. American
Ethnologist 39: 106–21.

International Center for Transitional Justice. ‘What is Transitional Justice?’

https://www.ictj.org/about/transitional-justice
Shaw, Rosalind. 2010. Linking Justice with Reintegration? In R. Shaw, L Waldorf, and P. Hazan (eds).
Localizing Transitional Justice. Stanford University Press.

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Wilson, Richard. 2005. Judging history: the historical record of the international criminal tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia. Human Rights Quarterly. 27: 208–42.

8 Legalism: morality and aspiration

Wormald, Patrick. 1999. Legal culture in the early Medieval West. London: The Hambledon Press. [Ch
1]
Whitman, James. 1996. At the Origins of Law and the State: Monopolization of Violence, Mutilation
of Bodies, or Fixing of Prices? Chicago-Kent Law Review 71: 41–84 [esp. 54–69]
Pirie, Fernanda. 2009. From tribal Tibet: the significance of the legal form. In M. Freeman and D.
Napier (eds) Law and anthropology. Oxford: University Press.
Pirie, Fernanda. 2011. Law before Government: Ideology and Aspiration. OJLS 30: 207–28.
White, James Boyd. 1985. Heracles’ Bow: Essays on the Rhetoric and Poetics of the Law. University
of Wisconsin Press. [Chs 2 and 9].