This panel brings together a number of papers that examine the legal, political, and social dynamics surrounding the invocation or engagement of the Islamic legal tradition in the contemporary world. Papers explore contexts ranging from Iraqi Kurdistan, to Jordan, to England and the United States. Session Organizer Steven Boutcher, UMass Amherst Chair Nurfadzilah Yahaya, National … Continue reading Law and Society Association: Islamic Law and Society in Contemporary and Hybrid Legal Contexts

The book interrogates the claim that human rights are axiomatic with liberal freedom. Revisiting human rights interventions on gender, and on behalf of sexual and religious minorities, the author exposes how such interventions have advanced neo-liberal agendas and new forms of imperialism, and enabled a carceral politics rather than produced freedom for their constituencies. Focusing … Continue reading Law and Society Association: Book Talk on “Gender, Alterity and Human Rights: Freedom in a Fishbowl”

This panel investigates how racialized groups mobilize for dignity inside and outside courts. Passalacqua analyzes the transformation of UK migrants' dignity claims by courts and lays bare law's limits as a dignity-restoring instrument. Farkas probes the conceptions of dignity by European and US actors in the Transnational Roma Rights Network arguing that the transnationality of … Continue reading Law and Society Association: Mobilizing European Law Against Racialization and Exclusion

This "Author Meets Reader" panel brings together readers from a variety of career stages and disciplinary backgrounds (law, religion, and political science) to engage with Tamir Moustafa's new book, Constituting Religion: Islam, Liberal Rights, and the Malaysian State (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Constituting Religion examines how dual constitutional commitments to religion and liberal rights invite … Continue reading Law and Society Association: Book Talk on “Constituting Religion: Islam, Liberal Rights, and the Malaysian State”

The international research collaboration deals with aspects of gender and judging in Muslim courts in the context of the Middle East and South (East) Asia. The issues addressed are: 1) the gendered construction of the judiciary, and 2) gender aspects of judging in Muslim courts. Do male and female judges on state courts and religious … Continue reading Law and Society Association: Gender and Judging in Muslim Courts

This panel explores the changing nature of the judiciary and civil service bureaucracy in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and Turkey in the face of political change, both historic and contemporary. Papers focus on constitutional courts in Hungary and Slovakia, the politicization of judges and accountability mechanisms for misconduct, the influence of Islamist groups and informal networks … Continue reading Law and Society Association: Courts, Bureaucracy and Politics in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and Turkey