Doctoral Dissertation Research in Law and Social Science

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All societies can be viewed as a plurality of normative orders capable of generating rules, customs, symbols, and compliance. Termed "legal pluralism," the study of the operation and interrelation of multiple normative orders has provided a major impetus for the reconceptualization of the law and society relation. Instead of being viewed as a "top-down" phenomena, law effectively is the result of the interaction of historical, cultural, social, political, and economic forces. Recent work in sociolegal studies has focused on this relationship and the ways in which it has affected legal change. Using an analysis of the interaction of legal orders in New Zealand as a vehicle for the study of legal pluralism, this dissertation research will examine historical and contemporary patterns of impositions, accommodations, and resistances that have marked struggles over rights and resources in colonial and post-colonial settings. Specifically, the student will study a Maori land claim against the New Zealand government for violations of an 1840 Treaty. Through archival research, statistical and demographic information, analysis of land tenure patterns, and community level oral histories, it will be possible to ascertain how law has structured the representation of interests, reflecting or facilitating political and economic change. Ethnic claims, plural legal systems, and politicization of "tradition" are familiar themes in the contemporary world. Legal strategies for addressing them are of considerable importance. This project has potential for contributing to a broader theoretical understanding of the factors that impinge on such situations. In a period in which land claims are being made in many parts of the world by the descendants of the original inhabitants of areas subsequently appropriated by other populations, this work has practical applications as well.