Foreword: Socio-legal studies and the humanities

This paper introduces a symposium on socio-legal studies and the humanities, justifying the originality of a dedicated special issue on this topic. The paper identifies and critically examines themes and problems in the literature before introducing the articles in the symposium and, finally, discussing areas for future research. Oneof the defining characteristics of socio-legal studies is to locate law in context.While the nature and extent of that context varies, and such variation itself generates debate about the preferred direction of socio-legal studies (Lacey, 1998; Hillyard, 2002; Erlanger, 2005), this concern with context has often admitted a range of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of law. Thus, significant contributions have been made to socio-legal study through the insights of a range of disciplines, including sociology and anthropology (Banakar and Travers, 2005). Consideration of the relationship of the humanities to socio-legal study – which is the focus of this special issue – has emergedmore recently. Indeed, it might be said that it has yet to gain widespread acceptance as a field of socio-legal studies, relative to a more established – though not uncontested – consideration of the relationship of the humanities to legal studies generally. This issue seeks therefore to emphasise the importance of such scholarship. 1 Genesis and rationale This issue, co-edited with Professor Melanie L. Williams, has its genesis in the One-Day Conference on ‘Socio-Legal Studies and the Humanities’, London, 5 November 2008, organised on behalf of the Socio-Legal Studies Association, with the support of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. Four out of the five papers in this issue were presented at the conference. The remaining essay was commissioned separately. The papers selected for the issue aim to provide an opportunity to explore the intersection of socio-legal studies and the humanities. That aim arises from a number of concerns. First, is the desire to reflect upon the possibilities for social, political and economic themes within some of the ‘law and literature’ genre. Given that much socio-legal scholarship has emphasised the importance of * This guest editor’s contribution was made thanks to: research leave on a Visiting Scholarship, Columbia Law School, spring 2009, funded partly by the University of Ulster School of Law, and; assistance from Professor Melanie L. Williams. Any errors in this Foreword remain the responsibility of the author. 1 The Socio-Legal Studies Association based in the United Kingdom adopted in 2006 a new ‘strapline’, ‘Where Law Meets the Social Sciences and Humanities’. 2 For a discussion of some of this literature, see Williams’s essay in this issue, ‘Socio-legal studies and the humanities – law, interdisciplinarity and integrity’. 3 Those by Williams; Watt; McNamee; Wachspress.