26 Nov Postcolonial Legal Theory
The academic field of postcolonial legal critique deals with the effects of colonialism and imperialism today. In this context, the law is seen as a social and cultural construct that changes over time. During the period of colonization by European states, national and international law developed in a way that allowed, for example, to legitimize slavery and genocide. European law, with its often racist elements, spread to many parts of the world during colonization. Postcolonial theorists show how imperial laws served to conceal colonial violence and how injustice was legitimized by the fig leaf of law. The law had been used, for example, to deny indigenous peoples in the colonies their status as legal persons. The development of international law is also closely linked to colonization. Postcolonial legal criticism today attempts to discover and question colonial continuities in national and international law. With a comprehensive index and a comprehensive introduction rewritten by the editors, placing the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Postcolonialism and the Law is an essential reference work. The collection will be particularly useful as a database that will make it easy to find scattered and often volatile documents. It is also hailed as a crucial tool for quick access to lesser-known – and sometimes overlooked – texts.
For postcolonial theorists and jurists, as well as those working in related disciplines such as critical legal studies, ethics, cultural studies, racial and ethnic studies, and human rights, it is certain that it will be seen as an important one-stop research and education resource. The anthology Dekoloniale Rechtskritik und Rechtspraxis, to be published by Nomos Verlag in August 2020, is the first volume to bring together foundational texts on decolonial legal theory. The interdisciplinary theoretical approaches of researchers such as Antony Anghie, Martti Koskenniemi, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui and Makau Mutua are written for the first time in German. This module aims to provide an understanding of the interrelationship between postcolonial theory and law in modernity (late nineteenth century to the present). More specifically, on postcolonial theory and critique, she examines the historical relations of power, domination, the practices of imperialism, colonialism and globalization as well as the role of law in this context. In particular, the module focuses on two aspects of the relationship between law and postcolonial studies: how law and legal technique were used in the context of European colonization and what contemporary implications this might have, and how postcolonial theory influenced critical legal studies. and helped develop postcolonial legal theory. The goal is to build a solid understanding of the relationship between postcolonial theory and law through some of the key texts that have shaped the field of postcolonial studies and law, from the school of subaltern studies to postcoloniality to new approaches such as globalization and decolonization. The texts used in the module are located in a wide range of disciplines, including history, social theory, philosophy, literature, cultural studies and law. They address key issues such as race, community, identity, gender of “otherness”, sexuality, sovereignty/border, governmentality, biopolitics, epistemic violence of Western knowledge regimes, including legal knowledge and justice.
For students interested in research in the fields of human rights, international law, indigenous rights, jurisprudence and critical legal theory, an understanding of these texts is essential. 56. Wainwright, J. and Bryan, J., `Cartography, territory, property: postcolonial reflections on indigenous counter-mapping in Nicaragua and Belize`, Cultural Geographies 2009 16: 153-178. In the perception of Western law, there is a persistent gap between the omnipresent power of law and its fragility. Many of these essays provide vivid accounts of the enormous creative power of law in the massive Western movement that populated and destabilized the globe. These reports indicate that the West embraces and transforms other peoples and legal systems in a way that constitutes and affirms the West in its own creation. Other essays deal with situations “within” the West, showing how its identity is created, maintained and also questioned, in a constant reference to the opposite “other” that a powerful law has shaped and transformed. Part of this challenge comes from the resistance of these “others” – a resistance that deeply shakes the West and its laws and exposes them as broken in the seemingly self-confident core of their own constitution.