Dr Andrea Pia and Dr Harry Walker

This course will first be available during the 2025/26 academic session.

This course is available on the BA in Social Anthropology, BSc in Social Anthropology, Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Cape Town), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Fudan), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Melbourne), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Singapore) and Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Tokyo). This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to major developments and debates in the anthropology of law and human rights across time and space. The first part of the course reflects on the origins and early developments of legal anthropology, including the legacies of colonialism and its impact on the development of customary law; the concept of legal pluralism; and the relationship between law, violence, and the state. The second part of the course explores selected themes and debates in the anthropology of law, including anthropological engagements with human rights; the concept of property; legal documents; and cultures of complaint. The final part of the course surveys emerging discussions around indigenous sovereignties, environmental and interspecies justice, and the rights of nature. 

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the WT.

The contact hours listed above are the minimum expected. This course has a reading week in Week 6 of LT.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the WT.

Students are expected to submit one essay in the LT to their class teacher on which they will receive formative feedback.

Malinowski, B. 1924. Crime and Custom in Savage Society. New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld.

Roberts, S. and Comaroff, J. 1981. Rules and Processes: The Cultural Logic of

Dispute in an African Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Foblets, M. Goodale, M. Sapignoli, M. and Zenker, O. (eds.) 2020. The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Comaroff, J. and Comaroff, J. 2007. Law and Disorder in the Postcolony. Social Anthropology 15(2): 133-152.

Englund, Harry. 2006. Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Strathern, M. 2006. Losing (Out On) Intellectual Resources. In Pottage, A. and Mundy, M. Law, Anthropology, and the Constitution of the Social: Making Persons and Things, pp. 201-233. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Riles, A. 1998. Infinity within the brackets. American Ethnologist 25(3): 378-398.

Kirsch, S.  2012. Juridification of Indigenous Politics. In J. Eckert, B. Donahoe, C. Strümpell, and Z. Ö. Biner, eds. Law against the State: Ethnographic Forays into Law’s Transformations, pp. 23–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the spring exam period.