“The House that Legal Geography Built: People, Places & Law”: CFP for a legal geography workshop at the University of Bristol on 25 April 2017*

Call For Papers

For a one-day Legal Geography Workshop at the University of Bristol, UK

On Tuesday 25 April 2017

“The House that Legal Geography Built: Exploring the Imbrication of People, Places and Law”

*[NB: the date of this event has been changed to Tuesday 25 April 2017 since the original version of this post] 

Legal geographers often describe their field of enquiry as studying the imbrication of people, places and law. We tend to think of imbrication as meaning braiding (following Braverman et al, 2014) or co-constitution (Delaney, 2016). But is this what imbrication actually means? In its OED definition, imbrication is not defined in the way legal geographers generally use the term today. Instead, imbrication’s 17th century origin, (in the sense of being ‘shaped like a pantile’): comes from the Latin imbricat-, covered with roof tiles.

This then is our starting point for this call for papers. How does this imbrication in legal geography actually work? How do the realms of law, spatiality and society fit together, for what purpose and in what circumstances? For while we presume that co-constitution (between people, place and law) is legal geography’s core premise, we also suggest that legal geography is still very much an inchoate cross-discipline, extending, one rooftile at a time. Envisaging legal geography as a project of interlacing, this workshop now aims to focus on the adjacent edges and overlaps. In particular, we are interested in any aspect of legal geography, including work on networks, materialities, affect, gender, race as well as scale, pluralism and performativity (Bennett and Layard, 2015). Of course, this is a relational connection, individual tiles come together to shelter the building as a whole but are also inter-related.

One purpose of this call for (15 mins) papers is to develop a network of all those interested in legal geography. It invites scholars working in human, urban, political geography and law, to offer empirical or theoretical contributions relating to legal geographies. Focusing on linkages, and extensions, papers will demonstrate how their connection illustrates the co-constitution of law, space and place by way of performative or relational significance to the chosen subject matter. In a collaborative setting, can we build legal geography still further? And if we do, what will the roof look like? We invite you to join us to find out.

If you would like to present a paper – or a sketch of a paper – please submit a title and abstract to antonia.layard@bristol.ac.uk by 15 March 2017.

This event is being organised by:

• Antonia Layard (Law – University of Bristol);
• Nick Gill (Geography – University of Exeter);
• Luke Bennett (Natural & Built Environment – Sheffield Hallam University) and
• Tayanah O’Donnell (Geography & Built Environment – University of Canberra).

The workshop is free to attend (we will announce the finalised programme and booking arrangements in the early April). We are not able to cover any travel or subsistence costs for speakers or delegates but hope for coffee and cake at the very least. If you are interested in legal geography but cannot make the workshop do let us know, we will compile a mailing list for anyone interested in the field.

Image credit:  Zola aka. Zhou Shuguang (http://zola.fotolog.com.cn/1671942.html) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D. The owners of this Chongqing “nail house” refused to leave it, thwarting plans for a shopping mall.