ANTH 222: Legal Anthropology

Prof. Ronald Niezen Winter 2012 Tues. and Thurs., 11:35 12:55, Leacock 219 Office hours: Wed. 2:30 4:00, Peterson Hall 200. Tel: 514-398-2706 E-mail: ronald.niezen@mcgill.ca

Course description:
This course has two principal goals: The first is to introduce students to the key issues, concepts, and methods of the anthropology of law as a distinct field of research. This part of the course (weeks 1 6) covers the intellectual history of legal anthropology, outlining the legacy of the most influential approaches to the comparative and ethnographic study of legal systems. Some of the pioneering anthropologists in British social anthropology in particular were centrally concerned with problems relating to law: the sources of social order, obedience, and dispute resolution in the absence of literacy and bureaucracy. Second (in weeks 7 13), the anthropology of law will be approached as a sub-discipline with important things to say about contemporary cultural contests, activism, group representation, and identity formation. It has emerged in the past decade or so as a particularly ground-breaking field of research, in part because it has become central to understanding the changed dynamics of cultural expression and collective identity through new avenues of communication and transnational networking. In many parts of the world, legal systems are pluralizing, often integrating local conceptions of justice with formal procedures and institutions. At the same time, more people and organizations than ever before are using the institutions and mechanisms of law to achieve conditions of equal access to the benefits of rights, recognition, and prosperity, above all through new standards and processes of human rights. The challenges of identifying and interpreting the controversies that follow from claims of difference and distinct rights alongside claims of equality and uniform standards of justice are central to the emerging field of legal anthropology.

Requirements:
Take-home mid-term exam (posted, Feb 28; due in class, March 6). 6-7-page paper (due April 2, in class): Final exam (date to be announced): 20% 40% 40%

Paper (6-7 pages): Student may choose from one of the two following options for the 6-7-page paper assignment: Option 1, comparative analysis: This will involve comparison of two reading assignments for the class. A set of comparative questions will be provided as a source of guidance, from which students may choose (or develop) the topic they prefer. This option is recommended for U 0 or U 1 students and for those who have no previous courses in anthropology. 1

Option 2, ethnographic analysis: Conduct an ethnographic observation of a public legal venue, such as (but not limited to) a court, council meeting, or public hearing. Write a brief description of your research site and the activities that took place in the event you observed. Relate your findings to any one reading assignment of the course. Assignments will be evaluated according to the following criteria: style (grammar, spelling, etc.), clarity of exposition, organization, understanding of the material, and original critical engagement with the material. Assignments submitted any time after the submission deadline without either prior arrangement with the instructor or a documented excuse will be subject to a 10% grade reduction per day. Papers must be submitted in hard copy only; no faxed or e-mailed copies will be accepted.

Course activity
Class time will consist of two lectures (Tues. and Thurs, 3:35-3:55) each week. Two films (and possibly others), Club Native and Gacaca: Living Together Again in Rwanda? will be shown during class time.

Readings:
The following texts will be available for purchase at the McGill book store: Englund, Harri. 2006. Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Merry, Sally Engle. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Niezen, Ronald. 2010. Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. . Other reading assignments will be posted on MyCourses.

Class schedule:
Week 1, Jan 10, 12: Introduction. MyCourses: Moore, Sally Falk. Certainties Undone: 50 years of Legal Anthropology. Week 2, Jan 17, 19: Law and Social Progress: Nineteenth Century Paradigms. MyCourses: Maine, Henry. Ancient Law, Chapter 5. Morgan, Lewis Henry. Ancient Society. Part 1, ch. 1; Part 4, chs. 1 and 2 Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labour in Society. Chs. 2 and 3.

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Week 3 Jan 24, 26: British Social Anthropology. MyCourses: Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1937. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 21-49. Richards, Audrey. 1982. Chisungu: A Girls Initiation Ceremony Among the Bemba of Zambia. New York: Routledge. Pp. 134-169 Malinowski, Bronislaw. 2009. Crime and Custom in Savage Society. New York: Routledge. Pp. 55-68. Week 4, Feb 1, 3: Ethnograpies of Judicial Process. MyCourses: Schapera, Isaac. 1970. A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom. London: Frank Cass. Pp. xi xxiii; 38-46. Bohannan, Paul. 1989. Justice and Judgment Among the Tiv. Selection from Sally Falk Moore, Law and Anthropology: A Reader, pp. 87-94. Gluckman, Max. The Judicial Process Among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia. Selection from Sally Falk Moore, Law and Anthropology: A Reader, pp. 84-86. Week 5, Feb 7, 9: Legal Perspectives on Ethnohistory. MyCourses: Moore, Sally Falk. 1986. Social Facts and Fabrications; Customary law on Kilimanjaro, 1880-1980. Pp.1-12. Ranger, Terrence. 1992. The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa, in The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawn and Terrence Ranger. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 211-212 and 229-262. Take-home mid-term exam distributed Feb 9. Week 6, Feb 14, 16: Legal Pluralism. MyCourses: Griffiths, Anne. 2010. Anthropological Perspectives on Legal Pluralism in Law and Anthropology: Current Legal Issues, edited by Michael Freeman and David Napier. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Pp. 164-186. Julia Eckert. 2006. From Subjects to Citizens. Journal of Legal Pluralism. 53: 45-75. Feb 19 Feb 25: STUDY BREAK Week 7, Feb 28, March 1: Aboriginal Law and Ethnic Formalization. MyCourses: Niezen, Ronald. 2003. Culture and the Judiciary. Canadian Journal of Law and Society. 18(2): 1-26. Sarfaty, Galit. 2007. International Norm Diffusion in the Pimicikamak Cree Nation : A Model of Legal Mediation. Harvard International Law Journal. 48(2): 441-82. . Take-home mid-term exam distributed Feb 28. Film, March 1: Club Native.

Week 8, March 6, 8: Construction and Naturalization Niezen, Ronald. 2010. Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law. Chs. 2 and 3. MyCourses: Latour, Bruno. 2010. The Making of Law. Ch. 5. Take-home mid-term exam due in class, March 6. Week 9, March 13, 15: The Ethnography of Human Rights. Englund, Harri. 2006. Prisoners of Freedom. Chs. 1, 2 and 6. Week 10, March 20, 22: The Transnational Movement of Indigenous Peoples. Niezen, Ronald. Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law. Ch. 4. MyCourses: Solway, Jacqueline. 2009. Human Rights and NGO Wrongs: Conflict Diamonds, Culture Wars and the Bushman Question. Africa. 79(3): 321-343. Week 11, March 27, 29: Gender Justice and Cultural Values. Merry, Sally Engle. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence. Chs. 4, 5, and 6. Week 12, April 3, 5: Trauma, Testimony, and Transitional Justice. Niezen, Ronald. Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law, Ch. 6. MyCourses: Wilson, Richard. 2001. The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ch. 2. Film, April 5: Gacaca: Living Together Again in Rwanda? 6-7-page paper due in class, April 5. Week 13, April 10, 12: The Anthropology of Law Online; Course summary and final exam preparation. MyCourses: Coleman, Gabriella. 2009. Code is Speech: Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest among Free and Open Source Software Developers. Cultural Anthropology. 24(3): 420-454. Sunstein, Cass. 2006. Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Pp. 164-196. Also, search for 2 or 3 Web sites that in some way are based on collective identity and legal claims. The final exam will be scheduled to take place during the exam period.

Statement on academic integrity:

McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the code of student conduct and disciplinary procedures (see www.mcgill.ca/integrity for more information).

Luniversit McGill attache une haute importance lhonnt acadmique. Il incombe par consquent tous les tudiants de comprendre ce que lon entend par tricherie, plagiat et autres infractions acadmiques, ainsi que les consquences que peuvent avoir de telles actions, selon le code de conduite de ltudiant et des procdures disciplinaires (pour des plus amples renseignements, veuillez consulter le site www.mcgill.ca/integrity).

Statement on language:
In accordance with McGill Universitys Charter of Students Rights, students in this course have the right to submit any written work in English or French.

Suggested reading
Agnes, Flavia. 1999. Law and Gender Equality: The Politics of Womens Rights in India. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. Benda-Beckman, Franz, Keebit Benda-Beckman and Melanie Wiber (eds.). 2006. The Changing Property of Property. Oxford, UK: Berghahn. Bornstein, Erica. 2005. The Spirit of Development: Protestant NGOs, Morality and Economics in Zimbabwe. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bornstein, Erica and Peter Redfield (eds.). 2011. Forces of Compassion: Humanitarianism Between Ethics and Politics. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research. Clarke, Kamari. 2009. Fictions of Justice. The International Criminal Court and the Challenge of Legal Pluralism in Sub-Saharan Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Comaroff, John and Jean Comaroff. 1997. Of Revelation and Revolution: Volume Two: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Esp. pp. 365-404. Coombe, Rosemary. 1998. The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation, and the Law. Durham: Duke University Press. Culhane, Dara. 1998. The Pleasure of the Crown: Anthropology, Law, and First Nations. Vancouver, BC: Talonbooks.

Darian-Smith, Eve. 2010. Race, Religion, Rights: Landmarks in the History of Modern AngloAmerican Law. Oxford, UK: Hart. Goodale, Mark and Sally Engle Merry (eds.). 2007. The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Gruskin, Sophia, Michael Grodin, Stephen Marks, and George Annas (eds.). 2005. Perspectives on Health and Human Rights. London: Routledge. Hacking, Ian. 1999. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. 1-21. Hoebel, E. Adamson. 2006 [1954]. The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mann, Jonathan, Michael Grodin, Sophia Gruskin, and George Annas (eds.). 1999. Health and Human Rights: A Reader. London: Routledge. Moore, Sally Falk. 2004. Law and Anthropology: A Reader. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Nader, Laura. 2002. The Life of the Law: Anthropological Projects. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Niezen, Ronald. 2003. The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 2006. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pottage, Alain and Martha Mundy (eds.). 2004. Law, Anthropology and the Constitution of the Social: Making Persons and Things, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Richland, Justin. 2005. What Are You Going to Do with the Villages Knowledge? Talking Tradition, Talking Law in Hopi Tribal Court. Law and Society Review. 39 (2): 235 271. Speed, Shannon. 2008. Rights in Rebellion: Indigenous Struggle and Human Rights in Chiapas. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tarde Gabriel. 1969. On Communication and Social Influence, ed. and trans. Terry Clark. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chs. 16 and 17. Witte, John and M. Christian Green (eds.). 2011. Religion and Human Rights. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.