The Life of the Law: Anthropological Projects

278 Pages·2002·0.94 MB·English

by  Laura Nader

The Life of the Law

The Life of the Law
Anthropological Projects
Laura Nader
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
(cid:2)2002 by the Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nader, Laura.
The life of the law : anthropological projects / Laura Nader.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–520–22988–6 (alk. paper).
1. Law and anthropology. I. Title.
K487.A57 N33 2002
340'.115—dc21 2001027675
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence
of Paper).
In memory of my grandson Nels

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Evolving an Ethnography of Law:
A Personal Document 18
2. Lawyers and Anthropologists 72
3. Hegemonic Processes in Law:
Colonial to Contemporary 117
4. The Plaintiff: A User Theory 168
Epilogue 213
Bibliography 231
Index 251

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I am grateful for the invitation from the
Department of Legal Sciences of the University of Trento, Italy,
to deliver the 1996 Cardozo Lectures. Professor Diego Quag-
lioni, director of the law school, was my host during the lecture
period from May 24 to May 25, and he brought together a most
inspiring community of colleagues to participate in the events
accompanying the lectures. Among them was Professor Ro-
dolfo Sacco—clearly the most inspirational of leaders in schol-
arship on law in culture and society for a younger generation
of Italian legal scholars. I am especially appreciative of the
warm hospitality, the good companionship and wonderful con-
versations, and the food and drink that I shared with my hosts,
Ugo Mattei and Elizabetta Grande. The combination of play-
fulness and serious talk, concern and responsibility, laughter
and observation was memorable. And I thank Ugo Mattei es-
pecially for being so adept at cutting bureaucratic tape and,
ix