Interdisciplinary Research Methods in Legal Studies

Course Type	Course Code	No. Of Credits
Discipline Core	SLG3LS301	4

Course coordinator and team:

Does the course connect to, build on or overlap with any other courses offered in AUD?

The two methods courses, Research Methods and Introduction to Legal Methods, as well as the course titled Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy offered as part of MA in Law, Politics and Society (MALPS), would serve as building blocks to this pre-doctoral course. However, students who haven’t done MALPS would not be at a disadvantage as the initial module of the course lays down the preparatory framework

Specific requirements on the part of students who can be admitted to this course: None (Pre-requisites; prior knowledge level; any others – please specify)

No. of students to be admitted (with justification if lower than usual cohort size is proposed): As per cohort size

Course scheduling (semester; semester-long/half-semester course; workshop mode; seminar mode; any other – please specify):semester long

How does the course link with the vision of AUD?

AUD stands for an inclusive learning that cuts across disciplinary boundaries. This course imbibes the spirit of interdisciplinary studies creating new pathways to academic learning, which AUD strives for.

How does the course link with the specific programme(s) where it is being offered?

The PhD in Legal Studies will be first of its kind doctoral degree programme not located in a Law School, but in a Social Science University, marking a new paradigm in the field of research in and on law in India. This course will train students in methods of engagement with this paradigmatic study.

Course Details:

Summary:Within the PhD course work, this course would serve as the first theoretical introduction to the field of Legal Studies, delineated both from the technical discipline of law as well as traditional social sciences. The attempt of the course, distinct from a survey analysis of the vast field of Legal Studies, is to engage with the field, methodologically. Alternatively put, the course seeks to learn/impart how ‘Law’ is studied within the discipline of Legal Studies. Rather than treating the ‘doctrinalists’ and the ‘interdiscplinarians’ as the simple binaries of each other, the course tries to bring about a synthesis between the two through a substantive engagement with how the legal academia has traversed from disciplinarity to interdisciplinarity, with challenges of the journey intact. In doing so, the course mobilizes themes that have been the central concerns of the legal discipline subjecting them to a multidisciplinary gaze to deduce how discipline centric methods analyse those concerns, and thereafter study the methodological interplay of different perspectives on the same. The themes present with a seriality of thought over specific notions of Law as its form, substance and sites, unfolding multiple ways of looking at those singular notions.

Objectives:

To introduce the field of Legal Studies to students, specifically in the Indian Context
To introduce to students the concept of disciplinary training and inter-disciplinary approaches
To introduce the conventional and the interdisciplinary methods of studying law
To locate the study of law at specific sites ranging from the constitutional text to lived experiences of people

Expected learning outcomes:

On successful completion of the course, students would demonstrate knowledge of

The expanse and the diversity of the field of Legal Studies
Different approaches to study Law
The limitations and the advantages of the different approaches
A deeper familiarity with the literature produced by contemporary legal scholars in India on specific themes addressed through this course.

Overall structure (course organisation, rationale of organisation; outline of each module):

Module 1: Multimodality of looking at law (2 weeks)

This module traces the trajectory of the field of Legal Studies- traversing a disciplinary view of law along with the social science perspectives. It introduces to students the conceptual categories of ‘disciplinarity’ and ‘interdisciplinarity’ in Law and the two different perspectives employed by them- the ‘internal’ and the ‘external’. The two distinct approaches will be used to classify different schools of legal scholarship ranging from legal formalism to critical legal studies with emphasis on how they view the Law. The module will also discuss what is a ‘Law first’ approach, both from the doctrinal perspective as well as social sciences, and if there is an alternative to this approach in the study of Law.

Module 2: What is Legal Method? (2 weeks)

This module begins with a rhetorical question of what is Legal Method to stress upon the possibilities as well as the challenges the question poses. The module adopts the approach of teaching through method rather than teaching method through a discussion on the following:

How to formulate questions from a legal studies perspective- descriptive, normative, analytical, theoretical Kinds of questions that can be asked through legal studies- instrumentalist, constitutive Frameworks to locate legal studies scholarship- autonomy, intersection, embeddedness Placing the schools of thoughts discussed in the previous module, in the above three.

Module 3: Law as Text (2 weeks)

This is the first module dealing with thematic application of methods learnt in the above two modules. The module looks at the question of the peculiarity of legal texts borrowing from the literature on ‘authoritative texts’ and debates on meaning essentialism. Taking the illustration of Constitution as a legal text, this module will discuss the multiple ways in which a legal text can be read. The rules of constitutional interpretation from the doctrinal perspective, will be juxtaposed with non-doctrinal study of the constitution bringing in narratives, fiction, ethnography, etc. substantive forms of engagement with the constitutional text.

Module 4: Law as Right (2 weeks)

The next module explores the notion of law as establishing rights. Through the theme of citizenship, this module discusses the substance of law. Does the legal transform the character of right or is the notion of right that gives validity to the law? What is specific to the idea of a legal right and what does it mean to have a legal rights? What are the ways in which law can be understood as a right and what are the sites of its visibility? These are some of the questions that this module would address. The theme of citizenship will be explored in its oscillation between a legal status and a terrain of political struggles.

Module 5: Law as Procedure (2 weeks)

This module would attempt to study law as a procedure through the theme of trial. The focus will be on the site of law, the court and how law claims an objective character through the procedure of trial. Juxtaposing the technicalities of a trial which render it autonomous to the society, the module would demonstrate the interplay of the legal and the social coming to life in course of a court trial where the court becomes a microcosm of the society. Module would also focus on the consequences of extrapolating the legal from the social and their interpolation. It would introduce students to a historical, political, linguistic analysis of trial.

Module 6: Law as Discipline (2 weeks)

This module would look at another site of law, the prisons, to view incarceration and disciplining as the instrumentalists modes of analysis of law. This module will focus on the carceral aspect of law and how the punitive power is seen as both legitimate and a source of legitimacy for law. This aspect of law will be juxtaposed with law as right to see how laws own subjects experience the duality of legal form and this duality can be understood in terms of law’s relationship with and its role in society. The attempt would be to see the prison as a site of law, created by law as both insulated from the society yet representative of the society.

Contents (week wise plan with readings):

Week	Plan/ Theme/ Topic	Objectives	Core Reading (with no. of pages)	Additional Suggested Readings	Assessment (weights, modes, scheduling)
1 & 2	Multimodality of looking at law	To discuss the conceptual categories of ‘disciplinarity’ and ‘interdiscplinarity’, the evolution of the field of Legal studies along the two categories and the different methods adopted by them.	Douglas W. Vick, 2004, Interdisciplinarity and the Discipline of Law, Journal Of Law And Society, Volume 31, Number 2, June B. Hansson, 1999, Interdisciplinarity: For What Purpose?, 32 Policy Sciences 339, C. Tomlins, 2000, `Framing the Field of Law's Disciplinary Encounters: A Historical Narrative', Law and Society Rev. Frederick Schauer, 2009, Is there Legal Reasoning, in Thinking Like a Lawyer, Harvard University Press, pp. 1-13 Schlag and Griffin, 2020, How to do Things with Legal Doctrine, University of Chicago Press, pp. 10-29 M. Diamantides, 2000, `The Long Way to an Un-disciplined Literature', Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature	P. Weingart and N. Stehr (eds.), 2000, Practising Interdisciplinarity Patrick Schmidt and Simon Halliday, Introduction: Beyond Methods – Law and Society in Action from Simon Halliday & Patrick Schmidt, Conducting Law and Society Research: Reflections on Methods and Practices How to Study Law by Anthony Bradney, Fiona Cownie, Judith Masson, Alan C Neal and David Newell, 6th edition, 2014
3 & 4	What is Legal Method	To discuss, from the stand point of diverse methods adopted by different legal scholarships, how to formulate questions for legal research, how to deduce the location of that question within the field of legal studies and how to assign frameworks to questions	B Tamanaha, Law and Society, in D Patterson ed, A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, Wiley Blackwell Christopher Tomlins, 2008, Law and History, in Keith E. Whittington et al (eds) Oxford Handbook on Law and Politics, OUP Keith E. Whittington, R. Daniel Kelemen, & Gregory A. Caldeira, 2008, The Study of Law and Politics, in Keith E. Whittington et al (eds) Oxford Handbook on Law and Politics, OUP Lynn Mather, 2008, Law and Society, in Keith E. Whittington et al (eds) Oxford Handbook on Law and Politics, OUP Austin Sarat and T Kearns, 1995, Beyond the Great Divide: Forms of Legal Scholarship and Everyday Life, in Law in Everyday Life, Michigan Press. Zamboni, M., Law and Politics, A Dilemma for Contemporary Legal Theory, Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, Springer, 2008, pp. 1-17, 125-141	Oliver Mendelson, From Colonial to Post-colonial Law in India, in Law an Social Transformation, OUP, 2014 Robert Gordon, 1984, “Critical Legal Histories,” Stanford Law Review D Lawrence, Austin Sarat et al, 2002, Theoretical Perspectives on Lives in the Law: An Introduction, in Lives in the Law edited by Austin Sarat. David Trubek, 1984, “Where the Action Is: Critical Legal Studies and Empiricism,” Stanford Law Review P. Thomas, 1997, `Socio-Legal Studies: The Case of Disappearing Fleas and Bustards' in Socio-Legal Studies. Susan Silbey and Austin Sarat, 1987, “Critical Traditions in Law and Society Research,” Law and Society Review	Class submission and presentation (20 marks)
5 & 6	Law as Text	To look at Constitution as an illustration of a legal text and discuss various ways of reading the constitution- covering the range from the doctrinal to the ethnographic.	Keith Wittington, 1999, Constitutional Interpretation, in Constitutional Interpretation, Textual Meaning, Original Intent and Judicial Review, University Press of Kansas Chintan Chandrachud, 2016, Constitutional Interpretation, in Sujit Choudhry et al, The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, New Delhi: OUP Mithi Mukherjee, 2010, An Imperial Constitution?, in Indian in the Shadows of Empire, a Legal and Political History 1774-1950, OUP, pp. 181- 218. Granville Austin, 1966, Indian Constitution, Cornerstone of a Nation, OUP, pp. 1- 62, pp. 384-411. Arvind Elangovan, 2014, Non-Nationalist Approach to Indian Constitution, History Compass 12/1 Kim Lane Scheppele, 2004, Constitutional Ethnography: An Introduction, Law & Society Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 Upendra Baxi, 2008, Outline of a Theory of Practice of Indian Constitution, in Bhargava ed, Politics and Ethics of Indian Constitution. OUP.	Dr. Ambedkar's Last Speech in the Constituent Assembly on Adoption of the Constitution (November 25, 1949) Sarbani Sen, 2012, Introduction, in Indian Constitution, Popular Sovereignty and Democratic Transformations, OUP. Kent Greenawalt, 2015, Interpreting The Constitution, OUP.	Seminar paper (20 marks)
7 & 8	Law as Right	The theme of Citizenship will be mobilized to look at how Law introduces the notion of right and in turn is shaped by the concept of right. How law entrenches and colonizes the idea of rights How law renders it unstable How politics mobilizes the instability to rearticulate right as claims/struggles	Citizenship Act of India 1955 Anupama Roy, 2016, We the People, Citizenship in the Indian Constitution, in Citizenship in India, Oxford India Short Introductions, OUP, Pp. 58- 113 Niraja Gopal Jayal, 2013, Legal Citizenship and the Long Shadow of the Partition, in Citizenship and its Discontents: An Indian History, Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press, pp. 51-80. Anupama Roy, 2010, The Citizenship Act, 1955, Liminal Citizenship at the Commencement of the Republic, Mapping Citizenship in India, OUP, pp. 33- 91 Seyla Benhabib, 2004, ‘The right to have rights’: Hannah Arendt on the contradictions of the nation-state, in The Rights of Others, Aliens, Residents, Citizens, CUP, pp. 49-70. Veena Das, 2011, State, Citizenship, and the Urban Poor, Citizenship Studies, Vol.15, No. 3-4	John Hoffman, 2004, Citizenship Beyond State, Sage, pp. 17-30; pp. 49- 62. Nasreen Chowdhory, 2018, State Formation, Marginality and Belonging: Contextualizing Rights of Refugees, in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, in Refugees, Citizenship and Belonging in South Asia, Springer, pp. 43-71.	Response Essay (20 marks)
9 & 10	Law as Procedure	Theme through which the idea would be explored – Trial. To understand the notion of a legal procedure and its specificity How does that specificity give law an objective character? How the objectivity of law is destabilized when the legal collapses into the social, in course of a trial.	Mithi Mukherjee, 2010, Indian in the Shadows of Empire, a Legal and Political History 1774-1950, OUP, pp. 1-44 Suresh, Mayur, 2019, 'The social life of technicalities: 'Terrorist' lives in Delhi's courts.' Contributions to Indian Sociology, 53 (1). Veena Das, 2019, A child disappears: Law in the courts, law in the interstices of everyday life, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 53 (1). K G Kannabiran, Conspiracies of Associations: Associational Offences, Associational Freedoms and the Rule of Law, in Kannabiran and Singh (ed), Challenging the Rule(s) of Law, Sage, 2008. Pratiksha Baxi, 2014, Justice is a Secret, Compromise in Rape Trials, in Public Secrets of Law, OUP, pp. 174- 233.		Field Report (20 marks)
11 & 12	Law as Discipline	Theme through which the idea would be explored – Custody. To understand the carceral form of law and juxtapose it with the notion of law as right. To understand the duality of existence of law in society by viewing prison as a site of law and custody as its form.	Jeremy Bentham, 1995 (re-print) The Panopticon Writings, Ed. Miran Bozovic, London: Verso,p. 29-95 M Foucault, 1977 reprint, Discipline and Punish, Penguin, pp. 195-230. Ujjwal K Singh, 1998, Political Prisoners in India, OUP, pp. 70- 107, 204- 250. Jinee Loakneeta, 2012, Transnational Torture, Orient Blackswan, pp. 1-33, 130-15 Nitya Ramakrishnan, 2013, Six Case Studies, in In Custody, Law, Impunity and Prisoner Abuse in South Asia, Sage Fictions- Begunah kaidi/ Arun Ferreira’s colurs of a Cage/ Mhd Amir’s Framed as a Terrorist	Julia Eckert, 2005, The Trimurti of the State: State Violence and the Promises of Order and Destruction, Max Planck Inst. for Social Anthroplogy. Jinee Lokaneeta, 2020, The Truth Machines, Orient Blackswan, pp. 20- 47.	Seminar Paper (20 marks)

Pedagogy:

Instructional strategies:

Special needs (facilities, requirements in terms of software, studio, lab, clinic, library, classroom/others instructional space; any other – please specify): classroom, projector, library
Expertise in AUD faculty or outside: SLGC faculty members are equipped to transact this course
Linkages with external agencies (e.g., with field-based organizations, hospital; any others): field interaction with practicing lawyers, legal aid projects, civil liberties organizations