Law and Space
Legal anthropological and sociological approaches
Colloquium SS 2010
Franz von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, Armin Höland
This colloquium addresses the question how law is used to define spaces with specific structures of economic and political authority. These can be nation states or smaller administrative units but also nature protection zones, economic zones, or sacred sites. We will address the problems arising from the fact that legally defined spaces often are not neatly separated but show considerable overlap. We shall look into the contradictions resulting from this overlap, and study the competition among government agencies when they each try to implement their specific legal regime within a certain space (as tourist area, or nature protection area, UNESCO heritage site or industrial zone). Particular attention shall be given to situations of legal pluralism in which different legal orders (international law, state law, religious law, and traditional ethnic law) co-exist. We shall see that each of the co-existing legal orders define the economic and social consequences of space and boundaries in distinct and often contradictory ways. A forest may be defined as a sacred forest under one legal system, as an ecological protected area under nature protection law, and as a resource to be exploited commercially under economic law. We will discuss the problems of competition and power structures entailed in legal pluralism. We shall further inquire into the ways in which a person’s rights and obligations (voting rights, property rights, tax obligations) are localised in legal, social, and physical space and the social and economic consequences such localised rights and obligations. The colloquium will discuss these issues, drawing on examples from industrial countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Canada but also from third world states (Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa) with a clear structure of co-existing legal orders.
The colloquium will be organised in three blocks manner. After an introductory meeting, the discussion of the literature will be divided over three blocks on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning (8th of May; 4th and 5th of June, 2nd and 3rd of July). The introductory meeting is on Friday, April 9th at 12.00 in the Civil Law library, “Thomasianum”, Universitätsplatz 10a.
Law students are very welcome. They may also attend the colloquium with the aim to prove the successful participation in a law course given in a foreign language. The certified participation in such a course is required by section 9 para. 4 of the legal education and examination regulations of the Land Sachsen-Anhalt for being admitted to the State part of the first law exam.
