1672Anthro 1672: Introduction to Legal Anthropology
Subject to modification
Spring 2014
Professor Kimberly Theidon
T/TH 11:30-1:00
Office hours: By appointment
TF: Abbas Jaffer
Course Overview
In this undergraduate seminar we will study changing conceptions of law, power and governance. We will read widely from both classic and contemporary texts in the fields of legal and political anthropology, examining the cultural dimensions of law and law’s changing relationship to discipline, power and governmentality.
Some have argued that we are living in an age in which the political is increasingly displaced into the realm of the legal, social policy dissolving into the technocratic language of efficiency. And yet the “rule of law” has tremendous currency and moral force in international politics, and legal language has become a key resource in struggles over livelihood and ways of life. How are relationships between legal and political realms structured and with what consequences? How does law provide tools for both social struggle and for social control? What does anthropology bring to research on these issues? In exploring these questions, we will combine theoretical readings with ethnographic inquiries of the state, the legal, the magical and the just.
Required/Recommended Texts
Please use your discretion and buy those books you believe will be useful to you now and in the future, and read the others on reserve. We will read some of the following texts in their entirety, and read selections from the others. Please consult the course syllabus for details. We will try to assure that all articles and text selections are posted on the course website as PDF files.
Texts Available for Purchase

Adam Ashforth. Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa. University of
Chicago (2005
John Comaroff and Simon Roberts. Rules and Processes: The Cultural Logic of Dispute
in an African Context, University of Chicago Press (1981).
Sarah Jain. Injury: The Politics of Produce Design and Safety Law in the United States.
Princeton University Press (2006).
Franz Kafka. The Trial. New York: Shocken Books. (1937) 1992
Tim Kelsall. Culture under Cross-Examination: International Justice and the Special
Court for Sierra Leone. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Bronislaw Malinowski. Crime and Custom in Savage Society. Littlefield Adams. 1926
(1974)
Sally Merry. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into
Local Justice. University of Chicago Press (2006)
Lawrence Rosen. Law as Culture: An Invitation. Princeton University Press (2006)
James C. Scott. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale
University Press (1987).
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Week One (1/28 & 1/30):
Tuesday: Course introduction
Thursday: Franz Kafka. The Trial
Week Two (2/4 & 2/6): Foundations
Tuesday: Bronislaw Malinowski. Crime and Custom in Savage Society.
Thursday: A. R. Radcliffe-Brown. “Primitive Law” in Structure and Function in
Primitive Society, New York: Free Press, pp. 212-219.
Paul Bohannon. Justice and Judgment Among the Tiv. London: Oxford University
Prress, chapters 1-4.
Max Gluckman. The Judicial Process Among the Barotse. Manchester University Press,
1967. Selections.
Week Three (2/11 & 2/13) Foundations/Transformations
Tuesday: Laura Nader, ed. Introduction and Part IV on “Comparative Studies.” In
Law in Culture and Society, University of California Press (1997).

Paul Bohannon. “The Differing Realms of Law.” American Anthropologist 67(6): 33-
42, 1965.
Thursday: John Comaroff and Simon Roberts. Rules and Processes: The Cultural Logic
of Dispute in an African Context, University of Chicago Press (1981). Selections to be determined.
Elizabeth Colson. “Social Control and Vengeance in Plateau Tonga Society.” Africa
23: 199-212, 1953.
Week Four (2/18 & 2/20): Colonialism and Customary Constructions
Tuesday: Sally Falk Moore. Social Facts and Fabrications: “Customary” Law on
Kilimanjaro 1880-1980. Cambridge University Press (1986).
Thursday: Finish Falk Moore.
MIDTERM DISTRIBUTED IN CLASS, DUE IN CLASS ON THURSDAY
Week Five (2/25 & 2/27): Legal Culture, Legal Reasoning
Tuesday: Clifford Geertz. “Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative
Perspective.” In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, New
York: Basic Books, (1983), pp. 167-235.
Thursday: Lawrence Rosen. Law as Culture: An Invitation. Princeton University
Press (2006).
Week Six (3/4 & 3/6): Power, Hegemony, Resistance
Tuesday: Raymond Williams. “Hegemony” and “Ideology.” In Keywords: A
Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Oxford University Press (1985).
James C. Scott. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale
University Press (1987). Selections to de determined.
Thursday: Laura Nader. Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain
Village. University of California Press (1990).
ONE PAGE PAPER DESCRIPTION DUE IN CLASS
Week Seven (3/11 & 3/13): Plurality (Revisited)
Tuesday: Sally Merry. “Legal Pluralism.” Law and Society Review 22(5): 869-901,
1998.
Richard Wilson. “Revenge and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa:
Rethinking Legal Pluralism and Human Rights.” Current Anthropology 41(1): 869-
901, 1988.

Thursday: Adam Ashforth. Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa.
University of Chicago (2005). Selections to be determined.
Week Eight (3/18 & 3/20)
Spring break, for which we rejoice
Week Nine (3/25 & 3/27): Hybrid Justice?
Tuesday: Tim Kelsall. Culture under Cross-Examination: International Justice and the
Special Court for Sierra Leone. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
LEGAL CRITIQUE PROJECT DUE IN CLASS
Thursday: Finish Kelsall’s book.
Week Ten (4/2 & 4/4):Law and Culture, with a Twist
Tuesday: Sarah Jain. Injury: The Politics of Produce Design and Safety Law in the
United States. Princeton University Press (2006).
Thursday: Finish Sarah Jain’s book
Week Eleven (4/9 & 4/11): Vernacularization
Tuesday: Sally Engle Merry. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating
International Law into Local Justice. University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Thursday: Finish Sally Engle Merry’s book
Week Twelve (4/16 & 4/18): Law and Neoliberal Dis/order
Tuesday: James Ferguson. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Duke
University Press (2006)
Thursday: Jean Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, eds. Law and Disorder in the Post-
Colony. University of Chicago (2006). Selections to be determined
Michel Foucault. “Governmentality.” Posted on course website.
THREE PAGE PAPER OUTLINE DUE IN CLASS
Week Thirteen (4/23 & 4/25): Trafficking
Tuesday: Lesley Sharp. “The Commodification of the Body and Its Parts.” Annual
Review of Anthroplogy, 29: 287-328.
Thursday: Nancy Scheper-Hughes. “Commodity Fetishism in Organ Trafficking.”
Body and Society, Vol. 4, No. 2-3, 2001, pp. 31-62.

—. “The Global Traffic in Human Organs.” Current Anthropology, Vol. 41, 2002, pp.
191-224.
—. “Theft of Life: The Globalization of Organ Stealing Rumors.” Anthropology
Today, Vol. 12, No. 3, 1996, pp. 3-11.
— “The Ends of the Body: Commodity Fetishism and the Global Traffic in Organs.”
SAIS Review, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2002, pp. 61-80.
Week Fourteen (4/30)
Course Conclusion
Course Requirements and Grading Criteria
This is a reading intensive course. We expect students to arrive in class having completed the assigned readings; during the heavy reading weeks, we will let you know which sections of the reading to focus on and will bring chocolate to class to help you keep up your strength and your spirits. (20% of the final grade)
We will have one take home exam that is designed to help to think your way through the material in preparation for selecting your final paper topic. The exam can be, indeed should be, considered a collective endeavor in terms of discussion; however, each student must author their own responses. (20%) of the final grade)
We will also have one legal critique project, designed to help you reflect on a current legal or political issue through the prism of course materials and discussion. Your report should explain the issue, summarize the key debates, and outline how legal anthropology would frame the problem and a possible response. (20%) of the final grade)
Grading will include class participation (20%); two mid-term exercises as detailed above (40%); and a final research paper (40%). For your final research papers, you are encouraged to select an issue that compels you, and that will allow you to look indepth at the issues we are covering in the course. Please meet with the teaching staff so that we may assist you in identifying possible topics as well as the relevant literature. Additionally, please note the following due dates for preliminary aspects of your final paper:
Your final paper of 12-15 pages, excluding bibliography, is due on May 12th.