Full-day Workshop: Race, Empire and Legal and Constitutional Theory

What are the relationships between critiques of race and empire, and legal-theoretical approaches to the constitutionalisation of power? This workshop foregrounds this encounter, with an emphasis on the methodological challenges and innovations it generates. The workshop brings together scholars from different disciplinary methodologies and practices, spanning law (human rights, constitutional law, international law), the humanities (performance studies), and social and political theory (critical race theory, gender studies, cultural studies). Together, they will explore the methods of and relationships between these different critical approaches, and their consequences for legal and constitutional theory.
 

Agenda

9.15am – Tea and coffee

9.30am – Welcome and introductions

9.45am-11.15am – Panel 1: Land, Nature and the Racial Logic of Rights

‘In themselves a hazard’: The racial capitalist logic of amenity value
Sarah Keenan, Birkbeck College, University of London
Granting rights to protect nature: possibilities and limitations
Helena Alviar García, SciencesPo
Discussant: Tsampika Taralli, University of Edinburgh

11.15am – Comfort break

11.30am-1pm – Panel 2: Silence and Silencing

We Who Must Fight in the Shade
Tommy J Curry, University of Edinburgh
Constitutionalizing racial aphasia
Christopher Gevers, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Discussant: Mihaela Mihai, University of Edinburgh

1pm-2pm – Lunch

2pm-3.30pm – Panel 3: State-building and Colonial Orders

The rule of law and racial difference in the British Empire
Kanika Sharma, SOAS, University of London
Constituting digital infrastructure in Latin America
Rene Urueña, Universidad de Los Andes
Discussant: Kathryn Nash, University of Edinburgh

3.30pm – Comfort break

3.45pm-4.45pm – General discussion

4.45pm – Closing comments

This event is in person only

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