1st Edition

The Judgment of Culture Cultural Assumptions in American Law

By Lawrence Rosen Copyright 2018
266 Pages
by Routledge

266 Pages
by Routledge

266 Pages
by Routledge

Legal systems do not operate in isolation but in complex cultural contexts. This original and thought-provoking volume considers how cultural assumptions are built into American legal decision-making, drawing on a series of case studies to demonstrate the range of ways courts express their understanding of human nature, social relationships, and the sense of orderliness that cultural schemes... Read more

Introduction

Part I: Bringing Culture into the Law
1. Defending Culture: The Cultural Defense and the Law’s Theory of Culture
2. Leave It to the Experts? The Anthropologist as Expert Witness
3. What’s It Like? Native Americans and the Ambivalence of Legal Metaphors

Part II: Nature and the Family
4: Should We Just Abolish Marriage? The Uses of Anthropology in Law and Policy
5: What’s Wrong with Incest? Perception and Theory in a Shifting Legal Environment
6: Natural Law or Law Naturalized? Nature v. Culture in the U.S. Supreme Court

Part III: Reaching Out
7: Medicalizing the Law: The Debate over Male Circumcision
8: The Incorporation of Custom: The Case of the Flashing Headlights
9: Is There a Place for Community? The Amish and the American Romance of Community

Conclusion

Biography

Lawrence Rosen is the William N. Cromwell Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Princeton University, USA, and Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, USA. As an anthropologist he has worked on Arab social life and Islamic law; as a legal scholar he has worked on the rights of indigenous peoples and American socio-legal issues. He is a member of the bar of the State of North Carolina and the U.S. Supreme Court.