Legal Anthropology
Objectives
The objective of the course program is to provide students with theoretical and methodological frameworks related to the various types of interactions between law and the anthropological contexts of its production and application. The general objective is to acquire in-depth knowledge about the most important theories and methodologies in the areas covered, in order to allow them to come to propose innovations and possible broadening of scope in the fields they will focus on in the future.
General characterization
Code
27103
Credits
4
Responsible teacher
Available soon
Hours
Weekly - Available soon
Total - 0
Teaching language
EN
Prerequisites
Not Applicable
Bibliography
Not Applicable
Teaching method
While the first six sessions of the Program are magisterial lectures, the latter ones include a small presentation of the theme by selected groups of students, followed by discussions around them. In terms of Faculty rules there is an obligatory final exam. Both for the exam and the short papers that will serve as the bases for discussions in the second part of the Program, evaluation will depend on clarity in the use of Legal Anthropology concepts used and discussed (40%), on knowledge of the examples treated (20%), and on the creativity displayed (40%).
Evaluation method
Students will present short written papers on one of the topics of the Program below. A final exam determines the minimal final classification obtained, which the quality of the paper presented may ameliorate. While the first six sessions of the Program are magisterial lectures, the latter ones include a small presentation of the theme by selected groups of students, followed by discussions around them. In terms of Faculty rules there is an obligatory final exam. Both for the exam and the short papers that will serve as the bases for discussions in the second part of the Program, evaluation will depend on clarity in the use of Legal Anthropology concepts used and discussed (40%), on knowledge of the examples treated (20%), and on the creativity displayed (40%).
Recapping: all students will present a short paper (its presentation lasting a maximum of 15 to 20 mn) on one of the topics of the Program, An obligatory final exam will determine the minimal classification obtained, which the quality of the short paper presente may ammeliorate.
Subject matter
Part 1 - Introduction
Domain circumscriptions in the anthropological study of law and politics: the classical tradition (1)
Head-hunting and peace-pacts: some of the dimensions of interpretation and explanation in anthropology (2)
The jural and the political: a controversy on the foundations of the comparative method (3)
On the nature of the legal and the political. recent anthropological perspectives (4)
Order, taxonomic categories and classes, anomalies: taboos and prohibitions as outcomes of classifying (5)
Hierarchies, egalitarianisms and exchanges: the construction of social stratification, modes of expression of authority, and cosmological elaborations (6)
Part 2 - Jural and political acts and processes
The state, judicial institutions and formalization: an example from zambia, central africa (7)
Social axes and political strategies: responsabilities and collective solutions among the ilongot, Philippines (8)
Formality and informality and judicial forms: an example form botswana, Southern Africa (9)
The alterity of practices: crime and punishment in Nigéria, West Africa (10)
The political dimension of a judicial discourse: cadi courts in Morocco (11)
Ritual aspects of the indefinition of conjunctures, legitimation, authority and the circumscription of collective identity: guerillas in Zimbabwe (12)
Public adminstration as cosmic management: spectacle, ceremony, and royal protocol in bali, Indonésia (13)
Part 3 - Descriptions and anthropological analyses of the jural and the political in portugal and the lusophone world culture; politics; and the state: examples from Macao, East Timor, and Lusophone Africa (14)
Inheritance, families and social groups: stratification in Trás-os-Montes (15)