The anthropology of law is perhaps as old as anthropology itself, tracing its origins back to Bronislaw Malinowski’s fieldwork in the Trobriands and, earlier, Sir Henry Maine’s evolutionary speculation

INTRODUCTION 1. Purposes and Scope of the Paper The anthropology of law is perhaps as old as anthropology itself, tracing its origins back to Malinowski’s fieldwork in the Trobriands and, earlier, the evolutionary speculation of Sir Henry Maine. For much of its existence, legal anthropology has remained a subject without a stable center, attracting an “enormous diversity in the range of issues investigated, the theoretical orientations advocated, [and] the research methods used.” In this essay, I review the overall development of the anthropology of law, its leading works, and prevailing theoretical orientations through different eras. I also examine the various dominant approaches in legal anthropology today, and attempt to explain their recent convergence on an interest in the role of language in legal contexts. I will conclude by suggesting an important and promising direction for the next generation of research in legal anthropology.