The Anthropology of Law

How do legal concepts and categories - such as rights, duties, obligations, liabilities, risks, injuries, evidence, redress, and even personhood - come to appear as fundamental, natural, and universal? How are seemingly essential natures of law, in fact, constructed and produced? What is the role of culture in fashioning key forms of consciousness, power, truth, freedom, violence, and justice? This course draws upon exemplary anthropological studies of law to investigate and illuminate the conceptions, operations, and transformations of law across many cultural and historical realms. The course also draws upon court cases and legal theory.