ECLT Seminar: ‘Unlimiting’ Legal Theory in Designerly Ways'

In Law Unlimited (2017), Margaret Davies urges theorists to adopt ‘a more open, dynamic and responsive understanding of law’—one which can better accommodate the multiplicities and indeterminacies of legal thinking and practice, and their entanglement with the wider human and more-than-human worlds. How? To unlimit law in this way we must approach theorisation less as a deterministic, formalistic process which aspires to conceptual coherence, and more as an imaginative and experimental process which aspires to conceptual innovation and to conceptual co-existence. 

This paper explores how techniques and knowledge from design-based disciplines might enhance our ability to make such a shift. It highlights the designerly ways of emphasising practical-critical-imaginative mindsets, experimental processes, and visual and material communication strategies; and illustrates how they might contribute to unlimiting legal theory with reference to specific examples. Along the way it surfaces pragmatism as a latent, hitherto unremarked, point of contact between legal and design theory.

This is a seminar given by Amanda Perry-Kessaris from the University of Kent. Our seminars consist of a 30 minute presentation given by the author, followed by a 60 to 90 minutes Q&A. The session will end with the opportunity for participants to experience some of the ideas presented by engaging in hands-on experimentation.

This seminar will not be a pre-read event. However, the paper will be circulated via the ELTRG mailing list