A Jurisprudence of Movement

Common Law, Walking, Unsettling Place

Olivia Barr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317531838
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

Law moves, whether we notice or not. Set amongst a spatial turn in the humanities, and jurisprudence more specifically, this book calls for a greater attention to legal movement, in both its technical and material forms. Despite various ways the spatial turn has been taken up in legal thought, questions of law, movement and its materialities are too often overlooked. This book addresses this oversight, and it does so through an attention to the materialities of legal movement. Paying attention to how law moves across different colonial and contemporary spaces, this book reveals there is a problem with common law's place.

Primarily set in the postcolonial context of Australia – although ranging beyond this nationalised topography, both spatially and temporally – this book argues movement is fundamental to the very terms of common law's existence. How, then, might we move well? Explored through examples of walking and burial, this book responds to the challenge of how to live with a contemporary form of colonial legal inheritance by arguing we must take seriously the challenge of living with law, and think more carefully about its spatial productions, and place-making activities. Unsettling place, this book returns the question of movement to jurisprudence.

Space, Materiality and the Normative

Series Editors: Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos and Christian Borch

Space, Materiality and the Normative presents new ways of thinking about the connections between space and materiality from a normative perspective. At the interface of law, social theory, politics, architecture, geography and urban studies, the series is concerned with addressing the use, regulation and experience of space and materiality, broadly understood, and in particular with exploring their links and the challenges they raise for law, politics and normativity.

Books in this series:

Spatial Justice: Body, Lawscape, Atmosphere

Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos

Urban Commons: Rethinking the City

Christian Borch and Martin Kornberger

Animals, Biopolitics, Law: Lively Legalities

Irus Braverman

Forthcoming:

Placing International Law: Authority, Jurisdiction, Technique

Fleur Johns, Shaun McVeigh, Sundhya Pahuja, Thomas Skouteris and Robert Wai

Spacing Law and Politics: The Constitution and Representation of the Juridical

Leif Dahlberg

A Jurisprudence of Movement

Common Law, Walking, Unsettling Place

Olivia Barr

First published 2016

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

a GlassHouse book

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2016 Olivia Barr

The right of Olivia Barr to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barr, Olivia, author.

A jurisprudence of movement / Olivia Barr.

pages cm. -- (Space, materiality and the normative)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-138-85039-2 (hbk) -- ISBN 978-1-315-72473-7 (ebk) 1. Jurisprudence--Philosophy. 2. Justice, Administration of--Philosophy. 3. Geographic perspectives. I. Title.K235.B379 2016

340’.1--dc23

2015013568

ISBN: 978-1-138-85039-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-72473-7 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781315724737

Typeset in Baskerville by

Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

For Estrella, who shared her friendship with such generosity and care, and taught me how to camp at home.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• List of figures
• To the reader
• Introduction: walking with empire
• Part I Moving jurisprudence
  • 1 The responsible jurist
    • 1.1 Lawful relations
    • 1.2 Recollecting the office of jurist
    • 1.3 A method of slowness
  • 2 The importance of movement
    • 2.1 Shaping movement
    • 2.2 Jurisdictional movements
    • 2.3 Placing burial
• Part II Performing jurisprudence
  • 3 A burial party walks
    • 3.1 Movements into, movements within
    • 3.2 Death in the woods beyond
    • 3.3 Juridical walking
    • 3.4 Camping with the dead
  • 4 Jurisdiction of the dead
    • 4.1 Movements in the polar South
    • 4.2 A death at the south pole
    • 4.3 Struggling to move
    • 4.4 Instituting lawful relations
• Part III Returning jurisprudence
  • 5 Return
• Index

Acknowledgements

I have lived with this book for a long time, often with a dose of exhilarated doubt dashed with the rhythmic joy of writing, before finally, slowly, trusting, while never quite knowing what lies around the corner. From Berlin to Bondi, Bremer Bay to Brunswick, this book carries the gloss of the swings and roundabouts not only of my life, but also the lives of many others. For this, I am overwhelmingly grateful to the many friends, family and colleagues who have shared this adventure and, while I do not name you all, trust me, you are with this book.

Long before I knew this was a book...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Frontmatter 1
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of figures
• To the reader
• Introduction: walking with empire
• Part I Moving jurisprudence
• Part II Performing jurisprudence
• Part III Returning jurisprudence
• Index