Law/Culture: Power, Politics and the Political
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4409.2012.01.1Keywords:
Law, culture, politics, power, representation, Foucault, RancièreAbstract
This paper is concerned with the dialectical relationship of law and culture. Recent academic work in the sociology of law positions such a relationship within a concept of power, specifically the power of law/culture to render the world meaningful not only in reciprocally constitutive ways but also in mutually deconstructive ways. While this kind of scholarship moves us some way beyond accounts which insist on law and culture as autonomous realms of human experience, it has created a context of consensus which is largely uncritical of their relationalities. Whilst not denying moments of creative synergy which emerge in productive and positive relations of mutuality, this discussion re-opens old antagonisms, and revisits law/culture as an ongoing contest and a dichotomous struggle over meaning, interpretation and judgement. I make use of a (familiar) Foucauldian vocabulary to delineate three modalities of power - sovereign, disciplinary and discursive – and use this as a framework for critically interrogating how law/culture stages different kinds of politics, which have varying effects in the broader political field of ‘justice’. The paper concludes by arguing for both a modified and an intensified approach to power which builds on the conceptual insights of an eclectic body of contemporary political theoretical work.
References
Anderson J.F., Reinsmith-Jones K. and Mangels N.J. (2011) Need for triangulated methodologies in criminal justice and
criminological research: exploring legal techniques as an additional method. Criminal Justice Studies, 24(1): 83-103.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1478601X.2011.544390 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1478601X.2011.544390
Ashenden, S. (1996) Reflexive governance and child sexual abuse: liberal welfare rationality and the Cleveland Inquiry. Economy and Society, 25(1): 64-88.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085149600000003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03085149600000003
Barnett, C. (2008) Political affects in public space: normative blind-spots in non-representational ontologies. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33: 186-200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2008.00298.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2008.00298.x
Bennett, T. (1998) Culture: A Reformer’s Science. London: Sage.
Berman. P.S. (2003) Telling a less suspicious story. In: A. Sarat and J. Simon (eds) Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies, and the Law: Moving Beyond Legal Realism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 105-153. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv125jj9z.6
Biber, K. (2006) The spectre of crime: photography, law and ethics. Social Semiotics, 16(1): 133-149. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330500487802 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330500487802
Brooks, P. (1998) A slightly polemical comment on Austin Sarat. Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, 10(2): 409-412.
Brooks, P. (2003) Law, Therapy, Culture. In: A. Sarat and J. Simon (eds) Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies, and the Law: Moving Beyond Legal Realism. Durham: Duke University Press, 245-256. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv125jj9z.10
Brown, M. (2009) The Culture of Punishment: Prison, Society, and Spectacle. New York: New York University Press.
Butler, B.E. (2003) Aesthetics and American law. Legal Studies Forum, 27: 203-220.
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1993) Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender. London: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203499627
Campbell, E. (2012) Landscapes of performance: stalking as choreography. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 30: 400-417. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/d13510 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/d13510
Castree, N. and MacMillan, T. (2004) Old news: representation and academic novelty. Environment and Planning A, 36: 469-480. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a3656 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/a3656
Chase, A. (1986) Toward a legal theory of popular culture. Wisconsin Law Review, 3: 527-569.
Chase, A. (2002) Movies on Trial: The Legal System on the Silver Screen. New York: New Press.
Coombe, R.J. (2001) Contingent articulations: a critical cultural studies of law. In: A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns (eds) Law in the Domains of Culture. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 21-64.
Connolly, W.E. (2002) Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Davis, O. (2010) Jacques Rancière. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Dean, J. (2011) Politics without politics. In: P. Bowman and R. Stamp (eds) Reading Rancière. London: Continuum, 73-94. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781472547378.ch-004
Deleuze, G. (1990) The Logic of Sense. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1996) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalsim and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Dillon, M. and Valentine, J. (2002) Introduction: culture and governance. Cultural Values, 6(1&2): 5-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1362517022019711 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1362517022019711
Douzinas, C. and Nead, L. (eds)(1999) Law and the Image: The Authority of Art and the Aesthetics of Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ewick, P. and Silbey, S.S. (1998) The Common Place of Law: Stories From Everyday Life. Chicago: Chicago University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226212708.001.0001
Fineman, M. and McCluskey, M.T. (eds)(1997) Feminism, Media, and the Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fitzpatrick, P. (1992) The Mythology of Modern Law. London: Routledge.
Fitzpatrick, P. (2005) “The damned word”: culture and its (in)compatibility with law. Law, Culture and the Humanities, 1: 2-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/1743872105lw003oa DOI: https://doi.org/10.1191/1743872105lw003oa
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Foucault, M. (1980) Two lectures. In: C. Gordon (ed) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon, 78-108.
Foucault, M. (2003) “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976. Translated by D. Macey. New York: Picador.
Friedman, L.M. (1989) Law, lawyers, and popular culture. Yale Law Journal, 98: 1579-1606. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/796606 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/796606
Gaines, J.M. (1991) Contested Culture: the Image, the Voice, and the Law. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Gearey, A. (2001) Law and Aesthetics. Oxford: Hart. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.12461
Giles, J. and Middleton, P. (2008) Studying Culture: A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Golder, B. and Fitzpatrick, P. (2009) Foucault’s Law. London: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203880562
Gräzin, I. (2004) On myth, considered as a method for legal thought. Law and Critique, 15(2): 159-181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/B:LACQ.0000035042.89262.d8 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:LACQ.0000035042.89262.d8
Greenfield, S. and Osborn, G. (1995) Where cultures collide: the characterization of law and lawyers in film. International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 23: 107-130. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/ijsl.1995.0007 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1006/ijsl.1995.0007
Greenfield, S. and Osborn, G. (2001) Film and the Law. London: Cavendish. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781843142645
Haldar, P. (1999) The function of the ornament in Quintilian, Alberti and court architecture. In: C. Douzinas and L. Nead (eds) Law and the Image: The Authority of Art and the Aesthetics of Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 117-136.
Hesselink, M. (2009) A European legal method? On European private law and scientific method. European Law Journal, 15(1): 20-45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2008.00449.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2008.00449.x
Hinchcliffe, S. (2003) Inhabiting – landscapes and nature. In K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile and N. Thrift (eds) Handbook of Cultural Geography. Sage: London, 207-227.
Hua, J. (2010) Feminism, asylum and the limits of law. Law, Culture and the Humanities, 6(3): 375-393. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1743872110374263 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872110374263
Hunt, A.(1999) Governing Morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hutchings, P. (2001) The Criminal Spectre in Law, Literature, and Aesthetics: Incriminating Subjects. London: Routledge.
Johnson, P. (2010) Law, morality and disgust: the regulation of ‘extreme pornography’ in England and Wales. Social and Legal Studies, 19(2): 147-163. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0964663909351438 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663909351438
Khan, U. (2009) Having your porn and condemining it too: a case study of a ‘kiddie porn’ exposé. Law, Culture and the Humanities, 5: 391-424. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1743872109339109 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872109339109
Kohm, S.A. and Greenhill, P. (2011) Paedophile crime films as popular criminology: a problem of justice? Theoretical Criminology, 15(2): 195-215. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1362480610388974 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480610388974
Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leonard, J.D. (ed) (1995) Legal Studies as Cultural Studies: A Reader in (Post)Modern Critical Theory. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Lippert, R. (2002) Policing property and moral risk through promotions, anonymization and rewards: revisiting Crime Stoppers. Social and Legal Studies, 11(4): 475-502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/096466390201100401 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/096466390201100401
Mackenzie, R. (2008) Feeling good: the ethopolitics of pleasure; psychoactive substance use and public health and criminal justice governance: therapeutic jurisprudence and the drug courts in the USA. Social and Legal Studies, 17(4): 513-533. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0964663908097083 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663908097083
MacNeil, W.P. (2007) Lex Populi: The Jurisprudence of Popular Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503625822
Manderson, D. (2000) Songs Without Music: Aesthetic Dimensions of Law and Justice. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Massumi, B. (2002) Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. London: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822383574
McCormack, D. (2003) An event of geographical ethics in spaces of affect. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 28: 488-507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0020-2754.2003.00106.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0020-2754.2003.00106.x
Meyer, P.N. (2001) “Desperate for love”: cinematic influences upon a defendant’s closing argument to jury. In: R. K. Sherwin (ed) Popular Culture and Law. Aldershot: Ashgate, 147-175. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315089645-5
Mezey, N. (2001) Law as culture. Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, 13: 35-67.
Moran, L., Christie, I., Sandon, E. and Loizidou, E. (eds)(2004) Law’s Moving Image. London: Cavendish .
Mossman, M.J. (1987) Feminism and legal method: the difference it makes. Wisconsin Women’s Law Journal, 3: 147-168.
O’Malley, P. (1992) Risk, power and crime prevention. Economy and Society, 21(3): 252-275. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085149200000013 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03085149200000013
Prendergast, C. (2000) The Triangle of Representation. New York: Columbia University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/pren12090
Rancière, J. (1992) On the Shores of Politics. Translated by Liz Heron. London: Verso.
Rancière, J. (1999) Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Translated by Julie Rose. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rancière, J. (2004) The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum.
Rancière, J. (2010) Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Edited and translated by Steven Corcoran. New York: Coninuum. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781472547378.ch-001
Rapping, E. (2003) Law and Justice As Seen On TV. New York: New York University Press.
Redhead, S. (1995) Unpopular Cultures: The Birth of Law and Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Rosenberg, N. (2001) Looking for law in all the old traces: the movies of classical Hollywood, the law, and the case(s) of film noir. University of California Los Angeles Law Review, 48: 1443-1471.
Ross, A. (2001) Components of cultural justice. In: A. Sarat and T.R. Kearns (eds) Law in the Domains of Culture. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 203-228.
Sarat, A. and Kearns, T.R. (eds)(1993) Law in Everyday Life. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.23345
Sarat, A. and Kearns, T.R. (eds)(2001) Law in the Domains of Culture. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Sarat, A. and Simon, J. (eds)(2003) Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies, and the Law: Moving Beyond Legal Realism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv125jj9z
Schlag, P. (2002) The aesthetics of American law. Harvard Law Review, 115: 1047-1118. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1342629 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1342629
Seymour, D. (2004) Film and law: in search of a critical method. In: L. Moran, I. Christie, E. Sandon and E. Loizidou (eds) Law’s Moving Image. London: Cavendish, 107-120.
Sherwin, R.K. (2000) When the Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line between Law and Popular Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sherwin, R.K. (ed)(2006) Popular Culture and Law. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Simons, J. (2002) Governing the public: technologies of mediation and popular culture. Cultural Values, 6(1&2): 167-181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1362517022019801 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1362517022019801
Singer, B.C.J. and Weir, L. (2006) Politics and sovereign power: considerations on Foucault. European Journal of Social Theory, 9(4): 443-465. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368431006073013 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431006073013
Smith, C. (2000) The sovereign state v Foucault: law and disciplinary power. Sociological Review, 48(2): 283-306. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.00216 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.00216
Smith, P. (2001) Cultural Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Stenson, K. (1993) Community policing as a governmental technology. Economy and Society, 22(3): 373-389. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085149300000025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03085149300000025
Taylor, C. (1994) Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Edited by A. Gutman, with commentary by K.A. Appiah, J. Habermas, S.C. Rockefeller, M. Walzer and S.Wolf. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Thien, D. (2005) After or beyond feeling? A consideration of affect and emotion in geography. Area, 37: 450-456. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2005.00643a.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2005.00643a.x
Thornton, M. (2002) Romancing the Tomes: Popular Culture, Law and Feminism. London: Cavendish.
Threadgold, T. (1997) Feminist Poetics: Poesis, Performing, Histories. London: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203206201 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203206201
Travis, M. (2011) Making space: law and science fiction film. Law and Literature, 23(2): 241-262. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/lal.2011.23.2.241 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/lal.2011.23.2.241
Thrift, N. (1996) Spatial Formations. Sage: London. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446222362
Thrift, N. (1997) The still point: expressive embodiment and dance. In: S. Pile and M. Keith (eds) Geographies of Resistance. Routledge: London, 124-151.
Thrift, N. (1999) Steps to an ecology of place. In D. Massey, J. Allen and P. Sarre (eds) Human Geography Today. Polity: Cambridge, 295-322.
Thrift, N. (2000) Afterwords. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18: 213-255. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/d214t DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/d214t
Thrift, N. and Dewsbury, J.-D. (2000) Dead geographies – and how to make them live. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18: 411-432. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/d1804ed DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/d1804ed
Tolia-Kelly, D. (2006) Affect – and ethnocentric encounter? Exploring the ‘universalist’ imperative of emotional/affectual geographies. Area, 38: 213-217. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2006.00682.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2006.00682.x
Turner, J.N. and Williams, P. (eds)(1994) The Happy Couple: Law and Literature. Sydney: Federation Press.
Valentine, J. (2002) Governance and cultural authority. Cultural values, 6(1&2): 49-64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1362517022019748 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1362517022019748
Valier, C. and Lippens, R. (2004) Moving images, ethics and justice. Punishment and Society, 6(3): 319-333. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1462474504043635 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474504043635
Valverde, M. (2003) Law’s Dream of a Common Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Valverde, M. (2006) Law and Oder: Images, Meanings, Myths. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Whatmore, S. (2002) Hybrid Geographies: Natures, Cultures, Spaces. Sage: London. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446219713
Wilcox, L. (2011) Beyond sex/gender: the feminist body of security. Politics and Gender, 7(4): 595-600. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X11000419 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X11000419
Young, A. (2005) Judging the Image: Art, Value, Law. London: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203643747
Zacharias, L.S. (2011) The narrative impulse in judicial opinions. Law and Literature, 23(1): 80-128. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/lal.2011.23.1.80 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/lal.2011.23.1.80
Žižek S (1999) The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London: Verso.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2013 International Journal of Criminology and Sociology
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Policy for Journals/Articles with Open Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post links to their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work
Policy for Journals / Manuscript with Paid Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Publisher retain copyright .
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post links to their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work .
