Popular Culture and Legal Pluralism: Narrative as Law (Law, Justice and Power)

Drawing upon theories of critical legal pluralism and psychological theories of narrative identity, this book argues for an understanding of popular culture as legal authority, unmediated by translation into state law. In narrating our identities, we draw upon collective cultural narratives, and our narrative/nomos obligational selves become the nexus for law and popular culture as mutually constitutive discourse.

The author demonstrates the efficacy and desirability of applying a pluralist legal analysis to examine a much broader scope of subject matter than is possible through the restricted perspective of state law alone. The study considers whether presumptively illegal acts might actually be instances of a re-imagined, alternative legality, and the concomitant implications. As an illustrative example, works of critical dystopia and the beliefs and behaviours of eco/animal-terrorists can be understood as shared narrative and normative commitments that constitute law just as fully as does the state when it legislates and adjudicates.

This book will be of great interest to academics and scholars of law and popular culture, as well as those involved in interdisciplinary work in legal pluralism.

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'Studies in legal pluralism and in law and popular culture have kept a wary distance from each other - worried perhaps that, like matter and anti-matter, they could not survive the encounter. But Wendy Adams has blown them up, showing what happens if you take them both seriously. She unpacks the unspoken assumptions and necessary implications of a body of work led by Rod Macdonald, and behind him Robert Cover. Neither could be said to be shrinking violets, but Adams has expounded a theory of legal consciousness and identity far more uncompromising. While critics from these different fields will find much to argue with, all will now have to take account of Adams' ambitious argument and its radical and confronting conclusions.'

Desmond Manderson, Australian National University

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wendy A Adams is Associate Professor of Law, McGill University, Canada. Her research interests are in the areas of legal pluralism, law and popular culture, commodification, and human-animal studies. She has published on these and related topics. Read more Continue reading Read less