Law in many diverse and unconventional places.
As we have learned, sociolegal studies scholars have emphasized the study of law in many diverse and unconventional places. For instance, a prominent sociolegal scholar has analyzed the example with which we began our first recorded lecture–use of a chair to make a claim on a shoveled-out parking spot–as a legal practice. We will read a few pages from Professor Sally Falk Moore, who begins to offer ways of identifying and defining these unconventional legal practices and locations and we’ll learn even more in the coming week’s lecture. In this assignment, you must observe a practice, place, or object (University of Toronto Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters) in your community that constitutes one of these less conventional instantiations of law. Describe the practice, place, or object (University of Toronto Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters) to us in rich detail. What do you observe? What is it? What is its context? How are people interacting with it, if at all? What is going on there? How do you know how people interact with it? These are the kind of questions you should consider, rather than a list of questions to answer. Next, drawing on the readings and lectures, you must explain why this place, practice, or object (University of Toronto Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters) is “legal” in character. Be sure to connect fully the place/practice/object in context to the readings and analyze fully why your selection is legal. What is your evidence? Be sure to state the evidence and link it up to your argument. Finally, compare and contrast your observations and analysis with the definition of law you offered at the beginning of the term. How does this complicate or resonate with your initial definition of law?
