Law and Anthropology

The series is intended as a forum for the publication of outstanding scholarly contributions that strive systematically to involve both lawyers and anthropologists in the study, thinking, and theorizing about the search for justice in contemporary societies. It seeks to give equal weight to anthropological scholarship on the functioning of non-state normative orders – often existing side-by-side with formal state law – and legal scholarship dealing with the pragmatics of practice in a wide variety of circumstances where different normative logics come into conflict with one another.

The series welcomes work that analyses not only the relevant legal sources, but also the ethnographic data that can help provide context and an empirical foundation in the search for concrete solutions. Studies that draw on the methods and conceptual frameworks of anthropology, while staying within the boundaries of the technical and doctrinal tools that the law makes available, are rare. The series offers a venue for nourishing such endeavours and provides the academic anchorage for anthropologists and legal scholars who are straddling the two disciplines to meet, exchange views, and further develop their ideas and analyses.