AbstractLegal anthropology attempts to give a different view of law. Through the examination of culture and tradition, legal anthropology has studied both the traditional others, such as indigenous peoples, as well as more familiar subjects such as Western lawyers. The lectures offer three viewpoints of law and anthropology, the first historical, the second and third contemporary. The historical part examines how lawyers and anthropologists struggled to study societies without law, whereas the second illustrates the tensions between traditionalism and the modern human rights discourse. The final installment discusses the rights of indigenous peoples through the issue of land tenure.
Class Schedule
1) Legal Anthropology: Disputes and Culture
2) Claiming Rights Against Tradition: Activism in and around Science
3) How the Natives Lost Their Land: Customary Land Tenure and Colonialism
Each class consists of two parts: a) an introductory lecture, followed by a discussion, and b) a case study involving the reading material and discussion.
Readings
1) Bronislaw Malinowski, ‘Primitive Law and Order’, Nature 117 (1926), pp. 9-16
2) Sally Engle Merry and Rachel E. Stern, ‘The Female Inheritance Movement in Hong Kong: Theorizing the Local/Global Interface’, Current Anthropology 46 (2005), 387-409.
3) Pauline Peters, ‘Challenges in Land Tenure and Land Reform in Africa: Anthropological Contributions’, World Development 37 (2009), pp. 1317–1325.
Kaius Tuori’s CV
Dr. Kaius Tuori holds a doctorate in Law and a M.A. in History from his studies at the universities of Helsinki, Finland, and La Sapienza in Rome, Italy. His research interests include legal history, Roman law, legal anthropology, and classical archaeology. In his work on intellectual history he has studied how modern law affected the history of ancient Roman law during the nineteenth century and how American Legal Realism influenced the study of early law during the mid-20th century. Currently he is finishing a book project on the early history of legal anthropology. He is Senior Researcher at the Center of Excellence of Global Governance Research at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights in Helsinki. His work has been published in the Journal of Legal Pluralism, Law, Culture and the Humanities, The Journal of Legal History, Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquite and the Legal History Review.
His website is http://blogit.helsinki.fi/katuori
A thing I found particulary interesting today was the approach established by Malinowsky to examine legal structures in "primitive" societies:
ReplyDeletei.e. to free oneself from the terminology and paradigms of one`s own legal system and to focus instead on the legal problems the savage society has to solve and the way she does so.
It becomes even clear that founding principles of our legal "culture" are completely different from the savage one,
especially as far as the reasons for observance of the law are concerned: whereas in our system we speak mostly about the existence of institutional and state-monopolized means to enforce rights, in other societies reciprocity in personal relations and religious ceremonys play a big role.
What would interest me is, for Mr.Tuori is a legal historian, what are current subjects of the anthropological study of Roman law.Christian Tammert
Thanks for the comment! One of the fundamental transitions in history, partially influenced by anthropology, is to approach the past as something completely foreign. The traditional historiographical approach, that of seeking the history of currently significant parts of our culture, risks imposing our current ideas on the past. That is a process that has involved also me considerably. While studying the Roman law, I have, for example, applied anthropological theories of magic and ritual to the Roman institution of mancipatio. The more one learns about the ancient cultures, the more profound their difference becomes. Kaius
ReplyDeleteThe meaning of the word "anthropology" is the study of the culture of a given human community in its form and its symbolic meanings. Just as the meaning of the word 'legal anthropology is the study of legal culture of a given human community.
ReplyDeleteThis discipline considers the cultural and symbolic aspects that the human beings,belonging to a same and only community, control through the right.
Studying at university courses in legal history, it is evident that the law is always back in comparison to the society, above all this is true respect the regulation of the modern sciences and technologies, the evolution of the family, the new computer systems, etc..
Today it is an analogous moment at the end of the medioevo: there are old norms for a society that it's evolving, it serves a system to discipline the change and not the stability!
Cristina Di Florio
I think that"anthropology"is a very useful and interesting discipline.It's the study of man,knowledge of his evolution,his behaviour,his relationship in the history.In my opinion, althought a lot of people believes actual western society the best,i have some doubts about it.First of all i think that is impossible to understand the present,our conditions and the modern society without looking at the past becouse we are the result of the ancient cultures!We cannot understand the modern need of adfirming human rights for instance without knowing the causes,the sofferings of people in the past.Then i think that we shouldn't consider the natives or who lives actually without our written roles bad.Infact, as Malinowski wrote,the Primitives in Melanesia had a good organization:eachone had a function and contributed to the stability and the satisfaction of all the group.Maybe if we combine the techonology we have with a more profound human relationship and respect for the others we can better achieve our results in all the disciplines!Federica Gulli.
ReplyDeleteAfter these two lessons i think that the anthropology,maybe is the very essence of law and humanities because this matter studies not only the evolution but the fact that in all countries and cultures thre is and there was a perfect interaction between law especially different istitutions,religion,social science ,activism and many more.i'm very interesting at the topic of Malinowsky because i think that he shows how different coltures like the natives of the tobriand islands,that were considered only savages or in a superstitional sense cruels or strange people,really had a rich colture full of institutions and different practices and the author with his contact and life with their try to understand the rel mechanism.In my opinion,the author ,with his work rappresents the real essence of anthropology,so ho studied different coltures and especially he compared this colture with common law to understend better the evolution of all the world and coltures;for this fact i think that,today,the anthropology is an important tool to resolve problems or to understand better,with the help of traditon,the better way to develop our society.
ReplyDeleteroberta antonelli
ReplyDeletei really enjoyed the lessons we had this week, the approach to the anthropology we had, helped me alot to open my mind. the goal of the course "law and the humanities" is reached. the study of the human behaviours and the complex way to think and to act as a single person and as a society helps alot to understand and to explain the different events in the history and all over the world.law is now in our mind not just as the abstract corpus of rights and principles made to govern and control the relations between humans, but to me it is an important rawplug of a huge PUZZLE, every single piece fixes perfectly with the others, and where the final picture is an immage of relations and different aspects of human existence. everything looks now alive and perfecly RODATO(?!?!).
ReplyDeletethinking of the relations between the local tribal costums, rituals and cultural actions in the natives life (that has its own life and is respected by the community just because it exists and is a strong belief) and the west society made and built on laws, with a big traditions of judges and jurisprudence, shows how every single population needs to follow its own story to build its own history. the mix of cultures(which is right and wrong at the same time, but is inevitable) gives then a shocking reaction in any case, cause 2 different histories need to find their new space together. the shock sometimes is an arrogant solution of the stronger on the other(think of the land situation we looked at today...with the legal game of the administration that at the end took every single land from the natives), or it can be strong, but it can help to give the human rights to everybody ,or an evolution in a society that has abuse from the senatory classs(think of the ancian values keeped by the asian senators that occasionally change when they need to, or the right of the woman to inherit the house, even if the legal chinese tradition wouldn't allow her).
the lesson we had the first day shown us how the humans in general, wherever they live and whenever they live, need to regulate and to administrate the relations between each other, with written or unwritten laws, with strenght or with a social contract, with the power of the history and tHE old values, or with the fair of the magic effects, the important thing is that whenever and wherever there are 2 people, sharing life and land ,the big puzzle of the human existence always has a rawplug of law or something similar.
giulia baliva
I think the path so far done has been important for me because it made me reflect on aspects of the law with other disciplines to which if someone has previously asked a question I could not find a match. Also in this series of lectures or concerns regarding anthropology has made me think about the fact that in any group of people or people's interaction with the law and even in those cultures as Established by the approach for Malinowsky Examine legal structures in "primitive "societies where religion or other governing relations there is always a law and order everything interacts. this is important to understand how other populations are structured in terms of legislation so this anthropological approach makes us understand that we must first observe the cultures and peoples and their social relations and cultural evolution to understand their approach to the law. Monica Di Silvestro
ReplyDeleteI have found these lessons a great moment of reflection. Reading the text about the native of Trobriand, and thinking at our past and present, I can say that the 'rule' is the foundation of our life and I understand how it is primary and essential in every community. There must be in all societies a class of rules. It is not important if they are rules of law, social, religious or magical rite.
ReplyDeleteIn the Trobriand Islands, savages have a definite system of division of functions and a rigid system of mutual obligations, and these allow them to have a great organization. Rules are followed because their pratical utility is confirmed by experience. They are the traditions of the community and they are respected by all. The collettive responsability is the main force that justifies the conformism of savages.
For me, we can not say if our legal system is better than their or vice versa, although some uses seem 'absurd' for us. But we should learn from them to give more importance to human relationships, without forgetting to respect of human rights that is the foundation of modern countries.
Francesca Natalini
I believe that the cycle of lessons prof.Tuori be very interesting. Especially when it faced the problem of respect for the traditions in contrast to certain fundamental rights. One example is the text which addresses the issue of Female Inheritance Movement. Here, the problem of respect of tradition, the impossibility for women to inherit, confronts the problem of discrimination that violates certain principles of human rights. In fact, the progress that leads to the advancement of society, has to face with the traditionalism that seek to preserve the cultural identity of the group. This concept is well connected with the problem of colonialism. In fact, in the nineteenth century, some European States had expanded their influence in other continents and have stolen land from the natives. At the time the transaction was considered perfectly legal, but with the passage of time and the evolution of human thought, the line of legality was moved and the natives have begun to claim their rights as has happened in several cases that have been shown in the lessons (Richtersveld or Mabo case). I found these lessons extremely useful because I didn’t think that it could be possible to find a connection between two subjects that seemed totally incompatible such as anthropology and law, in fact I discovered that in reality they are compatible and that anthropology can increase the capacity of people to understand history, society and the world. Michela Roberto
ReplyDeleteI would agree that anthropology is one of the key disciplines of the Law&Humanities-movement, as it`s broad scope of research and methods enables one to better understand the way law functions, for law is a central institution of man`s culture.
ReplyDeleteAnthropology can easily deliver results a lawyer can use in both practice and scholarship, and is very close to other
disciplines that have already found their way into the legal "canon" as being useful for scholarship, like legal history and
sociology. After Kaius Tuori`s lessons, I would say that an anthropological approach to law really merits further study.
Christian Tammert
I found very interesting this lessons about the relationship between law and anthropology.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning I was a little skeptical because I could not understand what was the culmination of these lessons.
It was obvious to me that, there was a link between law and anthropology, because this is the study of man and the law is designed to regulate human life and behavior.
With these lessons, however, I realized that there are many points of contact between the two arguments.
It was interesting to understand the problem that exists between law and anthropology caused by the presence of the traditions of each people. These traditions create a distance between the law and anthropology, which is difficult to fill because the popular traditions associated with the popular identity tend to want to prevail over the law.
This was very easy to understand from reading the article “the female intheritance movement in Hong Kong” in which is underline the absurdity of some popular tradition.
Valentina Favilli
I found really interesting the last lesson with the professor Kaius Tuori.
ReplyDeleteDuring the lesson the professor asked the class the reason why land issues are vital to indigenous people …
According to me, the lend is an essential commodity for the natives, because it is a source of wealth and welfare.
Land is one of the few resources that are definitely finite and it is necessary a policy of regularization of land.
During colonialism there were many conflicts between settlers and indigenous.
In the nineteenth century the major colonial powers were: France,G.Britain,Germany and Belgium.
These powers exploited the African continent' s resources,referring to an alleged civilizing mission.
During the colonialism the local population was discriminated politically and economically.
Only in 1950 local population managed to obtain the independence from the motherland.
I think that it has been very important for land issues the role of the anthropology, because to solve the problems that are at the base of the phenomenon of colonialism,it is important to study the socio-cultural aspects of indigenous ( like the behavior, the habits and customs, the mode of production and exchange of goods, power relations etc).
Sara De Prosperis.
These lessons about Law and Anthropology were really interesting! [I'm sorry I couldn't be at the last one!]
ReplyDeleteI think that one of the best thing lawyers can learn from anthropologists is to view things from an inner point of view, the text from Malinowsky [and his life too] was absolutely clear about it!
By the way, I found an interesting article that can be suitable for the Law and Anthropology topic about American Natives, their traditional law and costumes and what the western conquest did to them [even from a social point of view], here is the link http://ili.nativeweb.org/ili_info.html#1
Claudio Corsetti
Dear all,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for an interesting time and good discussions. I'm happy that you found law and anthropology interesting (I do as well, as you may have noticed)!
With best wishes from a very cold and rainy Helsinki,
Kaius