The Law and Society Association holds its annual meeting June 20-23, 2017, in Mexico City. The conference theme is Walls, Borders, and Bridges: Law and Society in an Inter-Connected World. It is jointly sponsored by the Law and Society Association, the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law, and with the participation of the Socio-Legal Studies Association, the Japanese Association of the Sociology of Law, and the Canadian Law and Society Association, and other groups. The submission deadline for papers and/or sessions is Oct. 18, 2016.
Walls and bridges: exclusion and inclusion. Everybody recognizes these two contradictory themes; they have a big role today in national politics, and national law; in international politics, and international law. A famous old statement had it that all politics is local; but today, all politics is, in some sense, global. If country A wants to close its borders, and close back in on itself, it is because it is reacting to turmoil outside its boundaries. Today, no wall can ever be high enough to shut out the forces that are shaping life in the 21st century, for better or for worse.
We think our field can help us understand that world, what makes it tick, where it has been, and where it is going. Our theme focusses on walls, borders, and bridges. But of course, we welcome all studies of law and society; empirical studies, no matter how small, no matter how local, can be tiles that fit into a larger mosaic; and many of these studies will be relevant to our theme, even when this relevance is a bit hard to see.
