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Resistance and the Cultural Power of Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Sally Engle Merry
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Abstract

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Current research in sociolegal studies focusing on resistance provides one way to continue the progressive politics of studying social transformation through law. In response to earlier concerns that the turn to postmodernism and the focus on individual acts of resistance has deflected scholarly work from attention to progressive politics, this article advocates broadening the question to examine a range of forms of resistance and their impact on cultural meanings as well as political mobilization. Through the examination of three examples of resistance that take place within and by means of legal institutions, the article endeavors to expand the frame of analysis to include the myriad processes by which the cultural world is made and remade.

Type
1994 Presidential Address
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , 1995 , pp. 11 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

This article was originally delivered as the Presidential Address at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association in Phoenix, AZ, on 18 June 1994. Research described here was generously supported by two grants from the National Science Foundation. Susan Silbey, Austin Sarat, John Brigham, and Christine Harrington provided insightful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft.

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