Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:41:44.396Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultural Expertise and Law: An Historical Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2019

Livia Holden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The use of anthropology and sociology for dispute resolution, law-making, and governance has been frequent throughout the history of law and anthropology. Anthropological expertise in the form of expert witnessing or expert information, has been one among the significant activities of applied anthropology. However, no concept such the one of cultural expertise was formulated to theorise the engagement of anthropologists and sociologists with law. This paper adopts an historical approach in order to understand why socio-legal studies have not developed a conceptualisation that encompasses the variety of the types of engagement of social scientists, and anthropologists in particular. It investigates the connection between law and culture in the history of anthropology of law since social evolutionism, and focuses in particular on legal pluralism. This paper suggests that the reasons for the late conceptualisation of cultural expertise lies on the one hand in the difficulty to define the dynamics between law and culture, and on the other hand in the specific development of legal pluralism vis-à-vis the state. This paper concludes with a reformulation of the concept of cultural expertise as an umbrella concept that encompasses the existing array of socio-legal instruments that use cultural knowledge for conflict resolution.

Type
Forum: Cultural Expertise
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 29 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

She thanks Marius Holden for his meaningful advice and the LHR editorial team for their careful and accurate reading. This forum is the outcome of the workshop titled Cultural Expertise in Ancient and Modern History convened on the 3–4 July 2018 by EURO-EXPERT, project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under H2020-EU Consolidator Grant (ERC grant agreement no. 681814), Principal Investigator: Livia Holden.

References

1. Holden, Livia, Cultural Expertise and Litigation. Patterns, Conflicts, Narratives (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Harris, Marvin, Cannibals and Kings. The Origins of Cultures (London: Collins, 1978)Google Scholar. Sanderson, Stephen, “An Evolutionary Interpretation of Fertility Decline: New Evidence,” Population and Environment 22 (2001): 555–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Cocks, Raymond, “Sir Henry Maine: 1822–1888,” Legal Studies 8 (1988): 247–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Feaver, George A., “The Political Attitudes of Sir Henry Maine: Conscience of a 19th Century Conservative 1,” The Journal of Politics 27 (1965): 297CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Mukhejee, Suomyendra N., “The Idea of the Village Community and the British Administrators,” Enquiry, New Series 3 (1971): 66–67Google Scholar.

Baden-Powell, Baden H., The Indian Village Community: Examined with Reference to the Physical, Ethnographic, and Historical Conditions of the Provinces; Chiefly on the Basis of the Revenue-Settlement Records and District Manuals (London: Longmans, Green, 1896), 229Google Scholar.

6. White, Leslie, “Lewis H. Morgan's Western Field Trips,” American Anthropologist 53 (1951): 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Lewis, Henry Morgan, League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or, Iroquois (Rochester: Rochester & Co, 1851)Google Scholar.

8. Fenton, William, “The Iroquois Confederacy in the Twentieth Century: A Case Study of the Theory of Lewis H. Morgan in ‘Ancient Society,’” Ethnology 4 (1965): 251–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Lutz, Hartmut, “German Indian Enthusiasm: A Socially Constructed German National(ist) Myth,” in Germans and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections, ed. Colin, Gerd Gemnden, Calloway, Gordon, and Zantop, Susanne (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 168Google Scholar.

10. Conley, John M. and O'Barr, William M., “A Classic in Spite of Itself: ‘The Cheyenne Way’ and the Case Method in Legal Anthropology (Book Review),” Law & Social Inquiry 29 (2004): 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tuori, Kaius, “The Disputed Roots of Legal Pluralism,” Law, Culture and the Humanities 9 (2013): 330–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Twining, William, “Law and Anthropology: A Case Study in Inter-Disciplinary Collaboration,” Law and Society Review 7 (1973): 561CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Twining, William, “Two Works Of Karl Llewellyn,” Modern Law Review 30 (1967): 514–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. Ingersoll, David, “Karl Llewellyn, American Legal Realism, and Contemporary Legal Behavioralism,” Ethics 76 (1966): 253–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Llewellyn, Karl N. and Hoebel, Adamson E., The Cheyenne Way. Conflict and Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1941)Google Scholar; and Conley and O'Barr, “A Classic in Spite of Itself,” 214.

15. Kroslak, Daniel, “The Idea of Legal Pluralism (with Regard to the Conception of Leopold Pospisil),” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011CrossRefGoogle Scholar, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1784804.

16. Conley and O'Barr, “A Classic in Spite of Itself,” 191.

17. Tuori, “The Disputed Roots of Legal Pluralism.”

18. Washburn, Kevin K. and Mitchell, Dalia Tsuk, “Felix Cohen, Anti-Semitism and American Indian Law,” American Indian Law Review 33 (2008): 583CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Tuori, “The Disputed Roots of Legal Pluralism.”

20. Conley, John M., O'Barr, William M., and Riner, Robin C., Just Words: Law, Language, and Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. Steinmetz, George, “Sociology and Colonialism in the British and French Empires, 1945–1965,” The Journal of Modern History 89 (2017): 610CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Ibid., 611.

23. Ibid., 612.

24. Jones, Gwilym I., “Social Anthropology in Nigeria during the Colonial Period,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 44 (1974): 280–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. Steinmetz, “Sociology and Colonialism in the British and French Empires, 1945–1965,” 612.

26. Deflem, Mathieu, “The Structural Transformation of Sociology,” Society 50 (2013): 156–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. Spitzer, Steven, “Marxist Perspectives in the Sociology of Law,” Annual Review of Sociology 9 (1983): 103–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Treviño, Javier A., “The Sociology of Law in Global Perspective,” The American Sociologist 32 (2001): 5–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. Reza Banakar, “The Sociology of Law: From Industrialisation to Globalisation” Sociopedia.isa, University of Westminster, School of Law Research Paper 11–03 (2011), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1761466.

30. Pospisil, Leopold, “Legal Levels and Multiplicity of Legal Systems in Human Societies,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 11 (1967): 2–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. Pospisil, Leopold, “Legally Induced Culture Change in New Guinea,” in The Imposition of Law, ed. Burman, Sandra and Harrell-Bond, Barbara (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 127–44Google Scholar.

34. Dunlap, Charles, “Lawfare 101. A Primer,” Military Review 97 (May-June 2017): 8–17Google Scholar.

35. Pospisil, “Legally Induced Culture Change in New Guinea,” 127–44.

36. On the criticism of romanticized view of indigenous law, see Fitzpatrick, Peter, Law and State in Papua New Guinea (London: Academic Press, 1980)Google Scholar; and Starr, June and Collier, Jane Fishburne, History and Power in the Study of Law: New Directions in Legal Anthropology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

37. Tamanaha, Brian Z., “The Folly of the ‘Social Scientific’ Concept of Legal Pluralism,” Journal of Law and Society 20 (1993): 204–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Noam Chomsky and Charles Foucault, “Justice versus Power,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5wuB_p63YM (November 23, 2018).

39. Chomsky, Noam and Pateman, Barry, Chomsky on Anarchism (Edinburgh; Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2005), 173Google Scholar.

40. Tuori, “The Disputed Roots of Legal Pluralism.”

41. Ibid.

42. Tamanaha, “The Folly of the ‘Social Scientific’ Concept of Legal Pluralism,” 192–217.

43. Michaels, Ralf, “The Re-State-Ment of Non-State Law: The State, Choice of Law, and the Challenge from Global Legal Pluralism,” Wayne Law Review 51 (2005): 1209–59Google Scholar.

44. Cohen, Jean L., “The Politics and Risks of the New Legal Pluralism in the Domain of Intimacy,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 10 (2012): 380–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45. Merry, Sally Engle, “Legal Pluralism,” Law and Society Review 22 (1988): 874CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46. Ibid.

47. Tuori, “The Disputed Roots of Legal Pluralism,” 337.

48. Ibid.

49. De Sousa Santos, Boaventura, Toward a New Common Sense: Law, Science and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition (London: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar.

50. Melissaris, Emmanuel, “The More the Merrier? A New Take on Legal Pluralism,” Social & Legal Studies 13 (2004): 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51. Berman, Paul Schiff, “Global Legal Pluralism and ‘Private’ International Law,” Transnational Legal Theory 1 (2010): 117–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52. Berman, Paul Schiff, “The Evolution of Global Legal Pluralism,” SSRN Electronic Journal 17 (2016): 151–88Google Scholar.

53. Ibid.

54. Roger Ballard, “When, Why and How Far should Legal Systems take Cognisance of Cultural Diversity?” presented at the International Congress on Justice and Human Values in Europe (Karlsruhe, 2007). Menski, Werner, “Life and Law: Advocacy and Expert Witnessing in the UK,” in Cultural Expertise and Litigation: Patterns, Conflicts, Narratives, ed. Holden, Livia (London: Routledge 2011), 151–71Google Scholar; and Shah, Prakash, Law and Ethnic Plurality: Socio-Legal Perspectives, Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy in Europe (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55. Shah, Prakash, Legal Pluralism in Conflict: Coping with Cultural Diversity in Law (London: Glasshouse Press, 2016), 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56. Shah, Prakash, Foblets, Marie-Claire, and Rohe, Mathias, Family, Religion and Law: Cultural Encounters in Europe, Cultural Diversity and Law (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014)Google Scholar.

57. Parashar, Archana, “Religious Personal Laws as Non-State Laws: Implications for Gender Justice,” The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 45 (2013): 5–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58. Bano, Samia, Gender and Justice in Family Law Disputes: Women, Mediation, and Religious Arbitration (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2017)Google Scholar.

59. Okin, Susan Moller, Cohen, Joshua, Howard, Matthew, and Nussbaum, Martha Craven, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (Chichester: Princeton University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Saharso, Sawitri and Prins, Baukje, “In The Spotlight: A Blessing and a Curse for Immigrant Women in the Netherlands,” Ethnicities 8 (2008): 366–84Google Scholar; Archana Parashar, “Religious Personal Laws as Non- State Laws: Implications for Gender Justice.”

60. Melissaris, “The More the Merrier? A New Take on Legal Pluralism,” 62.

61. Holden, Livia, Hindu Divorce. A Legal Anthropology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008)Google Scholar.

62. Bouillier, Veronique, “French Law Courts and South Asian Litigants,” in Cultural Expertise and Litigation: Patterns, Conflicts, Narratives, ed. Holden, Livia (London: Routledge, 2011), 53–70Google Scholar; Tommaso Sbriccoli and Stefano Jacoviello, “The Case of S: Elaborating the ‘Right’ Narrative to Fit Normative/Political Expectations in Asylum Procedure in Italy,” in Cultural Expertise and Litigation, 172–94.

63. Sportel, Iris, ‘Maybe I'm Still his Wife.’ Transnational Divorce in Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Egyptian Families (Nijmegen: Radboud University, 2014)Google Scholar.

64. Shachar, Ayelet, Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women's Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65. Grillo, Ralph D., Legal Practice and Cultural Diversity (London: Routledge, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66. Cohen, “The Politics and Risks of the New Legal Pluralism in the Domain of Intimacy,” 387–88.

67. Ibid., 393–97.

68. Holden, Livia, ed., Cultural Expertise and Socio-Legal Studies (Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69. Benda-Beckmann, Franz and Benda-Beckmann, Keebet, “The Dynamics of Change and Continuity in Plural Legal Orders,” Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 38 (2006): 1–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70. Ibid.; and Foblets, Marie-Claire and Renteln, Alison Dundes, Multicultural Jurisprudence: Comparative Perspectives on the Cultural Defense (Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2009)Google Scholar.

71. Benda-Beckmann and Benda-Beckmann, “The Dynamics of Change and Continuity in Plural Legal Orders.”

72. Urueña, Renè, “Indicators and the Law: A Case Study of the Rule of Law Index,” in The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Governance, Corruption, and Rule of Law, ed. Merry, Sally Engle, Davis, Kevin E., and Kingsbury, Benedict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015), 75–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73. Mihaela Serban, “Rule of Law Indicators as a Technology of Power in Romania,” in The Quiet Power of Indicators, 199–221.

74. Merry, Davis, and Kingsbury, The Quiet Power of Indicators.

75. Holden, Livia, Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and Diasporas (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014)Google Scholar.

76. Foucault, Michel, Senellart, Michel, and Burchell, Graham, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–79 (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)Google Scholar.

77. Holden, Livia, “Review of Navajo Nation Peacemaking: Living Traditional Justice,” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 30 (2007): 352–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and de Sousa Santos, Boaventura, Another Knowledge is Possible; Beyond Northern Epistemologies (London: Verso, 2008)Google Scholar.

78. Holden, Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and Diasporas.

79. Melissaris, “The More the Merrier? A New Take on Legal Pluralism,” 57–79.

80. de Sousa Santos, Boaventura, Toward a New Legal Common Sense: Law, Globalization, and Emancipation (London: Butterworths, 2002), 437Google Scholar; Teubner, Gunther, “Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law,” Law and Society Review 17 (1983): 1443–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cover, Robert, “Nomos and Narrative,” Anamorphosis 2–2 (2017): 187–268Google Scholar.

81. Teubner, “Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law.”

82. Melissaris, “The More the Merrier? A New Take on Legal Pluralism,” 72.