ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is an exercise in applied theory: it takes a theoretical stance towards the question of the limits of law and legal scholarship, and attempts to apply those insights in its analysis of specific areas of law. This chapters collected in the current book are an extension of previous work by Nordic legal feminists, but are more concentrated on the Swedish context. This collection continues the strong tradition in Nordic feminist work of analysing the structural conditions of equality and non-discrimination, as reflected particularly in law regulating social welfare and the labour market in the Nordic welfare state. The chapter by Johanna Niemi-Kiesilainen, Paivi Honkatukia and Minna Ruuskanen introduces critical discourse analysis and its starting-point in social constructionism as a socio-legal feminist method. The focus is sliding over to the nature of knowledge about law, or the epistemology of law.
