The ethnography of social media is still a developing field, and the anthropology of online legal topics is even more incipient. This article charts a digital ethnography of the regulation of hate speech online by examining the infrastructure of social media platforms, the content of speech acts (including coded speech) and their offline effects. These three levels can be analysed using an adapted version of Erving Goffman’s heuristic model of backstage, onstage and offstage presentations of the self in everyday life. A digital ethnography of law implies both a qualitative and quantitative study of offline effects of online speech, including harmful consequences that are direct as well as indirect. On this basis, the article presents findings that, while it is difficult to identify direct effects of online hate speech on violence, show indirect effects including the silencing of dissent and an undermining of trust and cooperation in wider society.
{"title":"The digital ethnography of law","authors":"R. Wilson","doi":"10.3167/jla.2019.030101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/jla.2019.030101","url":null,"abstract":"The ethnography of social media is still a developing field, and the anthropology of online legal topics is even more incipient. This article charts a digital ethnography of the regulation of hate speech online by examining the infrastructure of social media platforms, the content of speech acts (including coded speech) and their offline effects. These three levels can be analysed using an adapted version of Erving Goffman’s heuristic model of backstage, onstage and offstage presentations of the self in everyday life. A digital ethnography of law implies both a qualitative and quantitative study of offline effects of online speech, including harmful consequences that are direct as well as indirect. On this basis, the article presents findings that, while it is difficult to identify direct effects of online hate speech on violence, show indirect effects including the silencing of dissent and an undermining of trust and cooperation in wider society.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"107 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89308563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This comment focuses less on the three hopes expressed in Nigel Rapport’s title than on the conception of individuality and its relation to the aspirations of the social sciences that underpins his case for cosmopolitan politesse. First, I want to say that Nigel Rapport’s industry is astonishing. He reads widely, across many genres, and has written a great deal aimed at persuading us of two things: that the social sciences suffer from fundamental shortcomings, and that they are implicated, if not complicit, in communitarianism and other worrying tendencies of our age. Possibly social anthropology’s most ardent, resilient and ‘poetic’ reformer, he offers us here a digest of one of his many publications concerned with establishing the central importance to anthropology – and to the possibility of a decent world – of what his friend, Michael Jackson, calls ‘the human microsphere’. Because of Rapport’s many different journeys through this microsphere, it is not possible here to cover more than a little of the terrain.
{"title":"Comment on cosmopolitan politesse","authors":"D. Gardner","doi":"10.3167/jla.2019.030106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/jla.2019.030106","url":null,"abstract":"This comment focuses less on the three hopes expressed in Nigel\u0000Rapport’s title than on the conception of individuality and its relation to the aspirations of the social sciences that underpins his case for cosmopolitan politesse. First, I want to say that Nigel Rapport’s industry is astonishing. He reads widely, across many genres, and has written a great deal aimed at persuading us of two things: that the social sciences suffer from fundamental shortcomings, and that they are implicated, if not complicit, in communitarianism and other worrying tendencies of our age. Possibly social anthropology’s most ardent, resilient and ‘poetic’ reformer, he offers us here a digest of one of his many publications concerned with establishing the central importance to anthropology – and to the possibility of a decent world – of what his friend, Michael Jackson, calls ‘the human microsphere’. Because of Rapport’s many different journeys through this microsphere, it is not possible here to cover more than a little of the terrain.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81046946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article focuses on efforts to overcome the divide between state legality and local practices. It explores a pragmatic effort to deal with witchcraft accusations and occult-related violence in customary courts among the Miskitu people in Eastern Nicaragua, taking into account both indigenous notions of justice and cosmology, and the laws of the state. In this model, a community court (elected by the community inhabitants and supported by a council of elders), watchmen known as ‘voluntary police’ and a ‘judicial facilitator’ play intermediary roles. Witchcraft is understood and addressed in relation to Miskitu cultural perceptions and notions of illness afflictions, and disputes are settled through negotiations involving divination, healing, signing a legally binding ‘peace’ contract, a fine, and giving protection to alleged witches. This decreases tensions and the risk of vigilante justice is reduced. The focus is on settling disputes, conciliation and recreating harmony instead of retribution.
{"title":"Customary law and the mediation of witchcraft accusations in Eastern Nicaragua","authors":"Johan Wedel","doi":"10.3167/jla.2019.030104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/jla.2019.030104","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on efforts to overcome the divide between state legality and local practices. It explores a pragmatic effort to deal with witchcraft accusations and occult-related violence in customary courts among the Miskitu people in Eastern Nicaragua, taking into account both indigenous notions of justice and cosmology, and the laws of the state. In this model, a community court (elected by the community inhabitants and supported by a council of elders), watchmen known as ‘voluntary police’ and a ‘judicial facilitator’ play intermediary roles. Witchcraft is understood and addressed in relation to Miskitu cultural perceptions and notions of illness afflictions, and disputes are settled through negotiations involving divination, healing, signing a legally binding ‘peace’ contract, a fine, and giving protection to alleged witches. This decreases tensions and the risk of vigilante justice is reduced. The focus is on settling disputes, conciliation and recreating harmony instead of retribution.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"141 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76800580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since independence in 1947, highly politicised kinship practices have shaped the country from rural agricultural villages to the highest legislative and executive branches of government and the military. Ideal models of patrilineal affiliation have defined and guided patterns of factional loyalties. Although my earlier work has principally focused on village networks and politics, the same patterns of factional alliances can be seen at national levels to shed light on the activities of party politics. The mechanisms adopted by the traditional landed elite, far from being challenged, are integral to the strategic success of non-landed elites in securing the top, public, elected positions of power. So, rather than suggesting landed elites have become irrelevant, I argue the source of wealth is ultimately less relevant than the broader socio-economic shard class and familial interests of a minority elite bound together through marriage.
{"title":"Challenging the landed elite in contemporary Pakistani politics","authors":"S. Lyon","doi":"10.3167/jla.2019.030103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/jla.2019.030103","url":null,"abstract":"Since independence in 1947, highly politicised kinship practices have shaped the country from rural agricultural villages to the highest legislative and executive branches of government and the military. Ideal models of patrilineal affiliation have defined and guided patterns of factional loyalties. Although my earlier work has principally focused on village networks and politics, the same patterns of factional alliances can be seen at national levels to shed light on the activities of party politics. The mechanisms adopted by the traditional landed elite, far from being challenged, are integral to the strategic success of non-landed elites in securing the top, public, elected positions of power. So, rather than suggesting landed elites have become irrelevant, I argue the source of wealth is ultimately less relevant than the broader socio-economic shard class and familial interests of a minority elite bound together through marriage.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87791561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the past decade, images of fatal police shootings shared on social media have inspired protests against militarised policing policies and re-defined the ways marginalised communities seek justice. This article theorises the repetition of violent images and discusses how social media has become an important tool for localising popular critiques of the law. I provide an ethnographic account of a police shooting in a Brazilian favela (shantytown). I am particularly interested in how residents of the favela interpret law and justice in relationship to contemporaneous movements such as Black Lives Matter. Reflecting Walter Benjamin’s concept of mechanical reproduction, this case study demonstrates an ‘aura’ that is shaped by the social and legal context in which a violent image is produced, consumed and aggregated. This case study suggests the possibility for research examining the ways inclusionary social media platforms are increasingly co-opted by oppressive political institutions.
{"title":"Death on repeat","authors":"J. Scott","doi":"10.3167/jla.2019.030102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/jla.2019.030102","url":null,"abstract":"In the past decade, images of fatal police shootings shared on social media have inspired protests against militarised policing policies and re-defined the ways marginalised communities seek justice. This article theorises the repetition of violent images and discusses how social media has become an important tool for localising popular critiques of the law. I provide an ethnographic account of a police shooting in a Brazilian favela (shantytown). I am particularly interested in how residents of the favela interpret law and justice in relationship to contemporaneous movements such as Black Lives Matter. Reflecting Walter Benjamin’s concept of mechanical reproduction, this case study demonstrates an ‘aura’ that is shaped by the social and legal context in which a violent image is produced, consumed and aggregated. This case study suggests the possibility for research examining the ways inclusionary social media platforms are increasingly co-opted by oppressive political institutions.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"17 5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78498972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This provocative question became the basis for a spirited discussion at the 2017 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. My first reaction, on hearing the question, was to ask, does anthropology care whether it matters to law? As a discipline, anthropology and the anthropology of law are producing excellent scholarship and have an active scholarly life. But in response to this forum’s provocation article, which clearly outlines the lack of courses on law and anthropology in law schools, I decided that the relevant question was, why doesn’t anthropology matter more to law than it does? The particular, most serious concern appears to be, why are there not more law and anthropology courses being offered in law schools? It is increasingly common for law faculty in the United States to have PhDs as well as JDs, so why are there so few anthropology/law PhD/JD faculty? Moreover, as there is growing consensus that law schools instil a certain way of thinking but lack preparation for the practice of law in reality and there is an explosion of interest in clinical legal training, why does this educational turn fail to provide a new role of legal anthropology, which focuses on the practice of law, in clinical legal training?
{"title":"‘Does Law Matter to Anthropology?’","authors":"S. Merry","doi":"10.3167/JLA.2018.020208","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/JLA.2018.020208","url":null,"abstract":"This provocative question became the basis for a spirited discussion\u0000at the 2017 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. My\u0000first reaction, on hearing the question, was to ask, does anthropology\u0000care whether it matters to law? As a discipline, anthropology and the\u0000anthropology of law are producing excellent scholarship and have an\u0000active scholarly life. But in response to this forum’s provocation article,\u0000which clearly outlines the lack of courses on law and anthropology\u0000in law schools, I decided that the relevant question was, why doesn’t\u0000anthropology matter more to law than it does? The particular, most\u0000serious concern appears to be, why are there not more law and anthropology\u0000courses being offered in law schools? It is increasingly common\u0000for law faculty in the United States to have PhDs as well as JDs, so why\u0000are there so few anthropology/law PhD/JD faculty? Moreover, as there\u0000is growing consensus that law schools instil a certain way of thinking\u0000but lack preparation for the practice of law in reality and there is an\u0000explosion of interest in clinical legal training, why does this educational\u0000turn fail to provide a new role of legal anthropology, which focuses on\u0000the practice of law, in clinical legal training?","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"65 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80737804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Does anthropology matter to law? At first sight, this question might seem redundant: of course, anthropology matters to law, and it does so a great deal. Anthropologists have made important contributions to legal debates. Legal anthropology is a thriving sub-discipline, encompassing an ever-increasing range of topics, from long-standing concerns with customary law and legal culture to areas that have historically been left to lawyers, including corporate law and financial regulation. Anthropology’s relevance to law is also reflected in the world of legal practice. Some anthropologists act as cultural experts in, while others have challenged the workings of, particular legal regimes, including with respect to immigration law and social welfare.
{"title":"‘Turning Human Beings into Lawyers’","authors":"I. Koch","doi":"10.3167/JLA.2018.020210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/JLA.2018.020210","url":null,"abstract":"Does anthropology matter to law? At first sight, this question might\u0000seem redundant: of course, anthropology matters to law, and it does so a\u0000great deal. Anthropologists have made important contributions to legal\u0000debates. Legal anthropology is a thriving sub-discipline, encompassing\u0000an ever-increasing range of topics, from long-standing concerns with\u0000customary law and legal culture to areas that have historically been left\u0000to lawyers, including corporate law and financial regulation. Anthropology’s\u0000relevance to law is also reflected in the world of legal practice.\u0000Some anthropologists act as cultural experts in, while others have challenged\u0000the workings of, particular legal regimes, including with respect\u0000to immigration law and social welfare.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82260797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When I was thinking of going to law school, I went to speak with a law professor at the university where I had done my PhD. ‘Well, Mr. Rosen,’ he said, ‘the thing about law school is it will teach you how to think.’ I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop: think about law, think like a lawyer. No, he meant think – period. With all due humility, I was at that time coming from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and should like to imagine that I had actually learned a few things while doing my doctorate at his own university. In the forty years since, while serving as an adjunct professor of law and visiting professor at several such institutions, I have also encountered the occasional law scholar who, in a moment of academic noblesse oblige, has regarded my anthropology credentials as quaint but insufficient evidence that one has the tough-minded capacity that flows from a legal education. The lawyers may pay some attention to a few other disciplines, but, even though they may have given in to the allure of economics and bolstered their intellectual self-image with the odd philosopher or historian, the question remains why the law schools still tend to regard anthropology as almost entirely irrelevant.
{"title":"Reconciling Anthropology and Law","authors":"L. Rosen","doi":"10.3167/JLA.2018.020211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/JLA.2018.020211","url":null,"abstract":"When I was thinking of going to law school, I went to speak with a law\u0000professor at the university where I had done my PhD. ‘Well, Mr. Rosen,’\u0000he said, ‘the thing about law school is it will teach you how to think.’\u0000I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop: think about law, think like\u0000a lawyer. No, he meant think – period. With all due humility, I was at\u0000that time coming from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,\u0000NJ, and should like to imagine that I had actually learned a few things\u0000while doing my doctorate at his own university. In the forty years since,\u0000while serving as an adjunct professor of law and visiting professor at\u0000several such institutions, I have also encountered the occasional law\u0000scholar who, in a moment of academic noblesse oblige, has regarded my\u0000anthropology credentials as quaint but insufficient evidence that one\u0000has the tough-minded capacity that flows from a legal education. The\u0000lawyers may pay some attention to a few other disciplines, but, even\u0000though they may have given in to the allure of economics and bolstered\u0000their intellectual self-image with the odd philosopher or historian, the\u0000question remains why the law schools still tend to regard anthropology\u0000as almost entirely irrelevant.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89986533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Does anthropology matter to law? As phrased, this provocation, worthy of address though it certainly is, may ultimately be unanswerable. The reason? Because, like all questions of this sort, it harbours others within it. Precisely which ‘anthropology’? ‘Law’ as what? As everyday practice, as theorised praxis, as pedagogy, as politics by other means? What, moreover, counts as mattering? And from where, in particular, is the provocation being posed? All these questions, patently, make a difference.
{"title":"‘Does Anthropology Matter to Law?’","authors":"J. Comaroff","doi":"10.3167/JLA.2018.020206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/JLA.2018.020206","url":null,"abstract":"Does anthropology matter to law? As phrased, this provocation, worthy\u0000of address though it certainly is, may ultimately be unanswerable.\u0000The reason? Because, like all questions of this sort, it harbours others\u0000within it. Precisely which ‘anthropology’? ‘Law’ as what? As everyday\u0000practice, as theorised praxis, as pedagogy, as politics by other means?\u0000What, moreover, counts as mattering? And from where, in particular,\u0000is the provocation being posed? All these questions, patently, make\u0000a difference.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"3478 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86643406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article aims to unravel the complex negotiations surrounding property settlements and custody in cases of divorce in customary courts in Botswana today in the light of an earlier legacy of penalising divorce initiators. It argues that women’s attempts to get their husbands to initiate divorce proceedings can entangle women in lengthy negotiations and ultimately frustrate the aim of achieving a divorce. Repeated court hearings can last for years, we show. At the same time, in Botswana’s statutory courts today, an equal division of property irrespective of the causes of marital breakdown has become established practice. In the article, we aim to show that customary laws regarding property settlement in divorce have indeed changed, gradually adjusting to notions of equity in women’s rights in marriage, in response to a wider ideological, critical movement, even though chiefs or headmen presiding over customary courts do not always explicitly acknowledge this change.
{"title":"Divorce as Process, Botswana Style","authors":"P. Werbner, R. Werbner","doi":"10.3167/JLA.2018.020202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/JLA.2018.020202","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to unravel the complex negotiations surrounding\u0000property settlements and custody in cases of divorce in customary\u0000courts in Botswana today in the light of an earlier legacy of penalising\u0000divorce initiators. It argues that women’s attempts to get their husbands to\u0000initiate divorce proceedings can entangle women in lengthy negotiations\u0000and ultimately frustrate the aim of achieving a divorce. Repeated court\u0000hearings can last for years, we show. At the same time, in Botswana’s\u0000statutory courts today, an equal division of property irrespective of the\u0000causes of marital breakdown has become established practice. In the article,\u0000we aim to show that customary laws regarding property settlement\u0000in divorce have indeed changed, gradually adjusting to notions of equity\u0000in women’s rights in marriage, in response to a wider ideological, critical\u0000movement, even though chiefs or headmen presiding over customary\u0000courts do not always explicitly acknowledge this change.","PeriodicalId":34676,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Anthropology","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91374755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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