TY - JOUR
T1 - Broadening law’s context
T2 - materiality in socio-legal research
AU - Graham, Nicole
AU - Davies, Margaret
AU - Godden, Lee
PY - 2018/11/27
Y1 - 2018/11/27
N2 - SYNOPSIS: Socio-legal studies is a ‘heterogeneous field’ 1 that encompasses a broad range of topics. Indeed, recently, legal scholars who regard their work as socio-legal have accepted the inclusion of less obvious and less conventional contexts and sites of socio-legal research including specifically science, technology and the environment on the basis that ‘materiality also matters in socio-legal studies’. 2 This paper explores the recent expansion of the category of socio-legal, or ‘law-in-context’ research to incorporate the methodologies of disciplines beyond the humanities and social sciences to include material contexts, or socio-materialities. We argue for a greater recognition of socio-materiality, defined as ‘material structures embodying social relations and vice versa’, 3 in socio-legal research, given that we face mounting environmental challenges–not least the relationship between law, climate and effective mitigation measures. These challenges call for different methodologies, for doing legal research differently by questioning and subverting the abstractness and abstraction of law.
AB - SYNOPSIS: Socio-legal studies is a ‘heterogeneous field’ 1 that encompasses a broad range of topics. Indeed, recently, legal scholars who regard their work as socio-legal have accepted the inclusion of less obvious and less conventional contexts and sites of socio-legal research including specifically science, technology and the environment on the basis that ‘materiality also matters in socio-legal studies’. 2 This paper explores the recent expansion of the category of socio-legal, or ‘law-in-context’ research to incorporate the methodologies of disciplines beyond the humanities and social sciences to include material contexts, or socio-materialities. We argue for a greater recognition of socio-materiality, defined as ‘material structures embodying social relations and vice versa’, 3 in socio-legal research, given that we face mounting environmental challenges–not least the relationship between law, climate and effective mitigation measures. These challenges call for different methodologies, for doing legal research differently by questioning and subverting the abstractness and abstraction of law.
KW - socio-legal studies
KW - socio-legal research
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057594077&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10383441.2017.1548001
DO - 10.1080/10383441.2017.1548001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85057594077
SN - 1038-3441
VL - 26
SP - 480
EP - 510
JO - Griffith Law Review
JF - Griffith Law Review
IS - 4
ER -