ABSTRACT

Some of the most difficult legal and social issues arise from the problem posed by culture and difference. This may be difference arising from nationalism, or racial, ethnic and cultural movements, or gender and sexuality. They extend beyond the abstract and the academic to shape the immediate and the practical. This diversity poses a challenge for jurisprudence. The challenge for legal theory is to step outside the illusory, though comforting, paradigm of universalism in order to develop greater sensitivity to culture and difference.