Law, Activism and Critique Reading Group #3
If you wish to attend please email studentrep@csls.ox.ac.uk and you will be sent the link.
#BlackLivesMatter: Transnational Anti-Racism and Justice
Recent events in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis have sparked a series of crucial questions for all those committed to justice and fighting anti-blackness. How do we best support the movement from the spaces that we inhabit? How do we take the lessons and learnings from this time into the future? And as socio-legal scholars, how do we understand the role of law in fighting for change? In these weeks, public discourse has challenged us to seriously confront the historical legacies of the institutions we work within as well as well as to avoid tokenistic gestures in lieu of structural change. At the same time, there has been a great degree of argument on some fundamental questions, particularly on the legitimacy of violent protest as well as whether communities ought to give up direct action and focus on engaging with the democratic process to achieve their ends.
How might we make sense of these debates? In the spirit of attempting to extend this conversation among ourselves as social scientists interested in the law and its relationship to power, we are hosting a special session of the reading group on these questions. Since these issues are as pressing in the British context, where racial discrimination is rife and extends to all aspects of life for Black communities—recently evidenced in the Grenfell fire as well as the ongoing extension of the hostile environment—we will also read one text that speaks to the British context. We hope you will join us for what should be an exciting and intellectually generative conversation.
Readings:
In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil (2014), The New Inquiry. Available at: https://thenewinquiry.com/in-defense-of-looting/
Law, Justice and the Public Inquiry into the Grenfell Tower Fire by Patricia Tuitt (2019) in After Grenfell: Violence, Resistance and Response, edited by Dan Bulley, Jenny Edkins and Nadine El-Enany. London: Pluto Press.*
*This e-book is available for free until Sunday, 14 June 2020 on the Pluto Press website at this link: https://www.plutobooks.com/9781786804617/after-Grenfell/