Certainties undone: Fifty turbulent years of legal anthropology, 1949-1999

This article reviews the broadening scope of anthropological studies of law between 1949 and 1999, and considers how the political background of the p eriod may be reflected in anglophone academic perspectives. At the mid-cent ury, the legal ideas and practices of non-Western peoples, especially their modes of dispute management, were studied in the context of colonial rule. Two major schools of thought emerged and endured. One regarded cultural co ncepts as central in the interpretation of law. The other was more concerne d with the political and economic milieu, and with self-serving activity. S tudies of law in non-Western communities continued, but from the 1960s and 1970s a new stream turned to issues of class and domination in Western lega l institutions. An analytic advance occurred when attention turned to the f act that the state was not the only sourer of obligatory norms, bur coexist ed with many; other sites where norms were generated and social control exe rted. This heterogeneous phenomenon came to be called 'legal pluralism'. Th e work of the half-century has culminated in broadly conceived, politically engaged studies that address human rights, the: requisites of democracy, a nd the obstacles to its realization.