The increasing judicialization of politics and social struggles in Latin American over the past decades – from demands for transitional justice, and constitutions recognizing indigenous rights, to judicialized environmental conflicts and an ‘epidemic’ of health rights litigation – is also reflected in the scholarship in and on the region. But while the body of literature dealing with legal institutions and processes is growing, both within law and the social sciences, it is still a fragmented field. The Handbook on Law and Society in Latin America, edited by Rachel Sieder, Karina Ansolabehere & Tatiana Alfonso aims to provide a comprehensive contemporary overview and analysis of the state of Latin American law and society scholarship. The forthcoming publication of the volume offers a great occasion for scholars interested in the Latin-American region – and in the role of law in development processes more broadly – to gain knowledge about this dynamic field. The book’s editors will present snapshots and outline the main contributions of the socio-legal literature towards the understanding of Latin American society and politics-as well as highlighting the contributions that study of the region has made to this literature. One focus of the discussion will be the struggles of indigeneous women, explored in a new book edited by Rachel Sieder on Demanding Justice and Security: Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralities in Latin America (Rutger 2017).
The panel will also discuss what makes authorities comply with court orders. This is increasingly a focus in the law & society literature in Latin-America and beyond. This is the focus of a recent book edited by Malcolm Langford, César Rodríguez-Garavito & Julieta Rossi: Social Rights Judgments and the Politics of Compliance – Making It Stick (Cambridge University Press 2017)
Participants include: Rachel Sieder (CIESAS, Mexico;) Karina Ansolabehere (Flacso México); Tatiana Alfonso (UNAM/University of Wisconsin, Madison); Malcom Langford (University of Oslo, Norway) Bruce Wilson (University of Central Florida, USA)
Venue: Bergen Resource Center for International Development, Jektviksbakken 31