Legal pluralism, decolonisation and socio-legal studies

Studies of legal pluralism and decolonisation are both concerned with the relationship between law and power, and with understanding how people experience law in practice. Legal pluralists are concerned with decentring the powerful from the study of law, and with centring the voices of those traditionally excluded from conversations about what law is. Decolonialists are likewise concerned with empowering those subjugated by colonial rule, and with understanding how those populations have experienced law in practice. In this paper, I use publications from previous issues of the Journal of Law and Society to tease out these commonalities and to highlight what these fields of studies can teach us about the ways in which the legacies of colonialism shape the plurality of ways in which people experience law in society today.