Legal Traditions

Abstract

AbstractLegal anthropology has to understand and deal with complex and often plural constellations of normative bodies, legal discourses, institutions, and practices. They shape the legal regimes people live in. These legal regimes as well as the ways in which societies operate with legal diversity have developed over time. History has done more than shape the vocabulary and the grammar of each community’s law. The narratives we produce about the past are also used to construct and express individual and social identities. Thus, history and its (re)construction by later generations can impose constraints and limit available options, but also open spaces of negotiation and provide for innovation. Legal regimes of the past are often called ‘legal traditions’. In the last decades, the idea of ‘legal traditions’ has gained considerable practical importance. Especially in former colonial countries, and due to the increasing recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples in international and national law, many actors are drawing on history to claim rights and obligations for the present and the future. In a similar manner, some historical legal regimes seem to embody injustice, leading to pleas for the recognition of their unjust character or even for material compensation. The aim of this chapter is to offer some reflections on the concept of ‘legal traditions’ and its role in constructing our identities and shaping our present legal regimes.