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Ultimate Legality: Reading the Community of Law

Fitzpatrick, Peter, Mulqueen, Tara, Paliwala, Abdul, Tataryn, Anastasia (2020) Ultimate Legality: Reading the Community of Law. Journal of Law and Society, 47 (3). pp. 363-383. ISSN 0263-323X. (doi:10.1111/jols.12242) (KAR id:83918)

Abstract

This article is a contribution to the occasional series dealing with a major book that has influenced the author. Previous contributors include Stewart Macaulay, John Griffith, William Twining, Carol Harlow, Geoffrey Bindman, Harry Arthurs, André‐Jean Arnaud, Alan Hunt, Michael Adler, Lawrence O. Gostin, John P. Heinz, Roger Brownsword, Roger Cotterrell, Nicola Lacey, Carol J. Greenhouse, and David Garland. An initial twist: several acute observers would consider the way I read to be the most influential effect of reading on me – a way of reading that extends beyond the specificity of the text yet, in so doing, connects integrally with it. Salvation of specificity is at hand, however. That way of reading is intimately reflective of Derridean deconstruction and a hugely influential reading becomes his ‘Force of Law’. A problem ensues. Other influential reading came before my love of Derrida – influential reading to do with law and society (of course), with decolonization and imperialism, with engaged anthropology, and with critical legal studies. A retrospective revelation then follows. Derridean deconstruction is found to haunt and inform these other readings. They can be read in a way that inherently anticipates deconstruction. Some culminating coherence is offered by the inescapable insistence of community and the mutually intrinsic fusion of community and law.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1111/jols.12242
Subjects: K Law
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > Kent Law School
Depositing User: P. Fitzpatrick
Date Deposited: 04 Nov 2020 16:13 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Feb 2021 14:16 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/83918 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Fitzpatrick, Peter.

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