Law against the State

Julia Eckert is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern and head of the research group 'Law against the State' at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany. Her research interests are in legal anthropology, the anthropology of the modern state, social movements, the anthropology of crime and punishment and changing notions of responsibility and justice. Brian Donahoe is an independent researcher, writer and editor. From 2004 to 2010 he was postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. His thematic interests include the dynamics of constructing, maintaining and asserting ethnic identity and indigeneity, and different approaches to guaranteeing indigenous rights to land. Christian Strümpell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University. His research interests are in the anthropology of labour, economic anthropology and political anthropology, with a regional focus on South Asia in general and the Indian state of Orissa. Zerrin Özlem Biner is a research associate in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge. Her research explores new ethnographic sites for the study of the state in documenting the experiences of minority citizens in post-conflict settings in contemporary Turkey.

• Introduction: law's travels and transformations Julia Eckert, Zerrin Özlem Biner, Brian Donahoe and Christian Strümpell; 1. Juridification of indigenous politics Stuart Kirsch; 2. Naming, claiming, proving? The burden of proof issue for Russia's indigenous peoples Brian Donahoe; 3. Human rights and village headmen in Malawi: translation beyond vernacularisation Harri Englund; 4. Juridification, transitional justice and reaching out to the public in Sierra Leone Gerhard Anders; 5. The juridification of political protest and the politicisation of legalism in South African land restitution Olaf Zenker; 6. Rumours of rights Julia Eckert; 7. Public interest and private compromises: the politics of environmental negotiation in Delhi, India Amita Baviskar; 8. Law against displacement: the juridification of tribal protest in Rourkela, Orissa Christian Strümpell; 9. Documenting 'truth' in the margins of the Turkish state Zerrin Özlem Biner; 10. The ones who walk away: law, sacrifice and conscientious objection in Turkey Erdem Evren; Epilogue: changing paradigms of human rights Upendra Baxi.