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Introduction: Mapping the Pluralist Character of Cultural Approaches to Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Greta Olson

Abstract

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This introduction explains the title of this special issue as a call for transdisciplinary and culturally-oriented research on law in Germany. In an initial overview of pluralism, the text asserts that a German discussion of the pluralistic nature of legal authority predates the twentieth-century one within legal anthropology, legal theory, and political philosophy. The first part of the text reviews the early discussion of legal pluralism in the context of debates about state formation and an appropriate balance of forms of normative authority. This discussion points to the inherent plurality and affectivity of law. The second part of the introduction, in turn, is devoted to an argument in favor of the culturally-embedded and - mediated nature of legal phenomena made through an analysis of images relating to the so-called refugee crisis. On the basis of this analysis, it is posited that critical cultural methods and concepts are needed to comprehend current processes such as the so-called Europeanization of law, the increasing heterogeneity of legal systems and cultures, and to critically bracket the idea of “legal culture” in and of itself. The last part of the introduction offers an overview of the essays in this special issue. On the one hand, each essay contributes to the thesis that law is pluralistic and has to be investigated interdisciplinarily, using a plurality of methods. On the other hand, all of the contributions make a different kind of claim for how law transpires and is transported through theatrical, visual means, narratives, and affects.

Type
Introduction: Arguments for Cultural Approaches to Law
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 2: Special Issue Law's Pluralities , 01 March 2017 , pp. 233 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by German Law Journal, Inc. 

References

1 I am grateful to Franz Reimer, Birte Christ, and Frans-Willem Korsten for their critical readings of this text. The infelicities that remain are purely of my own making. Franz Reimer and I also wish to thank sincerely Maren Walinski, Lisa Beckmann, Madeline Kienzle, and Stefanie Rück for their assistance in bringing this special issue to completion.Google Scholar

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