We are delighted to invite you to submit a paper abstract for the workshop ‘Legal Anthropology in a Changing Climate’ organised by the European Association of Social Anthropologists’ (EASA) Network on Anthropology of Law, Rights, Politics and Governance (LAWNET) in collaboration with the LSE Anthropology Department and the Grantham Research Institute.
Organised as thematic roundtable discussions, this one-day workshop will take place at the LSE on 16 May 2025, but online participation is also possible. The aim of the workshop is to establish a common research agenda focused on how the legal anthropology of climate change can both ask critical questions and produce beneficial impact beyond the discipline. This event is open to the public.
Funding is available to contribute to some travel and accommodation costs for early career / precarious / unemployed colleagues travelling within Europe. You do not need to be an EASA member to participate in the workshop, but we will ask that you join the LAWNET mailing list.
Please send your paper abstract (max 250 words) to easalawnet(at)gmail.com by 15 February 2025. Kindly specify whether you would like to apply for funding to contribute to your travel and accommodation costs in your submission.
Roundtable theme
As climate change causes devastating impacts to people and environments around the world, it has become the subject of increasing legal concern. Policymakers are developing regulatory structures to address climate change at global, national, and local levels. People are suing governments and polluting corporations, with the aim of forcing them to take more ambitious climate action and accept responsibility for climate harms. Activists facing criminal trials cite the climate emergency to justify civil disobedience. Building on a longstanding body of legal and political ethnography, anthropologists critically examine the intersection between climate change and law. Recent work looks at how legal concepts are used to reframe the moral stakes of climate change, how climate activists make claims against major polluters, and how climate science is mobilized as legal evidence. While anthropologists are increasingly contributing to interdisciplinary debates on the role of law in addressing climate change, there is significant scope for more anthropological engagement with legal practice and broader public discussions.
This workshop brings together legal and political anthropologists working on climate change to take stock of recent advances in the field and discuss what role anthropology can play going forward. In a series of thematic roundtables, researchers will have the opportunity to share their work and reflect on the role of our discipline in addressing the climate crisis. We will discuss our engagement with the legal and regulatory field and how anthropological knowledge can affect the legal processes we study. The workshop is also open to researchers studying related issues who can provide relevant insights, such as on the emergence of new legal norms and anthropologists’ involvement in legal and political processes. The aim of the workshop is to establish a common research agenda focused on how the legal anthropology of climate change can both ask critical questions and produce beneficial impact beyond the discipline.