Call for panel proposals for the upcoming CLP conference 5-10 August 2013 in Manchester, United Kingdom
download the text of the call here.
Over the last decade 'legal pluralism' has become a buzzword. In various areas of legal study, ranging from international law to constitutionalism, and in various policy oriented fields - such as the proliferation of rights based movements, politics of cultural diversity or access to justice programs - the concept of legal pluralism has gained momentum. In the process a plurality of legal pluralisms has come about. The Commission on Legal Pluralism - inspired by the theme of the IUAES Congress 'Evolving humanity, emerging worlds', which is normative and analytical at the same time - stands by its 30 year old agenda, which merges the concerns of social anthropology and law in the study of society and in the resolution of social problems. It invites scholars and practitioners to present contemporary work to the 2013 Conference. There are many topics of classical, yet still urgent concern: these include contestations over property, land and natural resources, gender, human rights, religion, development cooperation, migration, and governance. We urge those who have continued to work in these areas to present their insights and discoveries for debate.
However, our 'emerging worlds' continuously generate further topics of attention. These topics are of two kinds: novel forms of norm-generating capacity and under-researched forms of normative intersection. In such pluralisms the normative interacts with science, technology and knowledge production, with tenets of faith, and the ever changing schemes of profit making, propertization and commodification. Such areas deserve attention as they also affect our classic fields of research or have developed from there. Whereas much of the scholarly work on legal pluralism has concentrated on rural areas, where folk law is frequently strong, urban space - which now gathers approximately 50% of the world population - has been widely neglected. So has the study of banking and financial flows, so crucial for economic wellbeing. Processes of 'securitizing', 'auditizing' and 'responsibilization', which are influencing more and more dimensions of social life, too deserve investigation from the angle of legal pluralism.
In all this we, the Commission, are concerned about who wins and who loses. For humanity - taken in its normative sense - to evolve, scholars and practitioners must gather their forces. We look forward to a conference that catalyzes attention for a sparkling variety of topics and concerns, and serves as a further source of inspiration.
Call for panel proposals
We request interested parties to submit proposals for panels in the 2013 Manchester conference. The panels proposed may be 'populated' (including names of at least 3-4 presenters and titles of papers per panel) or 'empty' (without names of paper presenters). A proposal should include (a) a title (max 10 words), (b) name of panel organizer, (c) email address of panel organizer, and (d) a panel description of not more than 150 words. If the panel is populated, the proposal should also have (e) a list of presenters and - preferably - the titles of their papers.
Please send your proposals to Bertram Turner (turner@eth.mpg.de), with copies to Maarten Bavinck (j.m.bavinck@uva.nl) and Janine Ubink (j.m.ubink@law.leidenuniv.nl), not later than May 20th, 2012.
We look forward to seeing your plans and suggestions.
On behalf of the Executive Body,
Bertram Turner/Maarten Bavinck/Janine Ubink