WHY LAW NEEDS EMPIRICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Excerpt adapted from Editor’s Introduction to PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 32:1 (2009)

One of the larger gaps in translation between law and social science today can be found in the U.S. legal academy’s (general lack of) receptivity to the knowledge available on legal topics from the field of anthropology.  And yet, in today’s increasingly connected world, anthropology provides a perspective not found in other social sciences in the United States (apart, perhaps, from qualitative sociology as it ventures outside of the United States).  There is arguably a preference in US policy making circles for quantitative research based in economics and political science; this research can be very useful for some purposes, but it does not focus on translating between U.S. and other cultures’ perspectives. Ironically, this preference is paired with a great deal of rhetoric about the need to adjust to a global world in which transnational norms and economic ties are becoming ever more important. Yet the scholarly fields with the most experience in interpreting across such global arenas do not seem to translate well in the corridors of power. To what degree this is an insoluble problem–or a problem at all–seems to be a point on which well-respected anthropologists disagree. Some might argue that there is simply no point in trying, because U.S. legal and political frameworks are simply incapable of incorporating any fundamentally different perspectives.  But for those (whether inside or outside of anthropology) who are interested in formulating policies that take account of the needs and perspectives of the world outside of the United States, anthropology has a great deal to offer in comparison to the other US social sciences.

Take, for example, anthropological research demonstrating the paradoxical consequences of some Western intervention purportedly designed to empower and help people struggling with poverty across the globe. Such interventions on the part of organizations like NGOs and international financial institutions (the World Bank, the IMF) often wind up further undermining disempowered people at the local level–and among the social sciences, it has been anthropology that has led the way in documenting and analyzing this process. (See, for example, recent special issues of PoLAR devoted to the question of NGOs.)

More generally, an informed engagement with anthropological research can help correct a tendency on the part of Western legal scholars and politicians to understand global dilemmas through Western-centric paradigms. There have been some efforts in recent years to move beyond narrow “rational actor” models in the forms of economics being absorbed by US legal and political elites. However, this is a very elementary step by comparison with methods long available through the field of anthropology. And, of course, these anthropological methods are subject to constant, vigorous internal critiques–perhaps, however, to the point where they seem entirely discredited to audiences in other fields (unaware of the fact that these same critiques would discredit still further the interview, survey, experimental, and other techniques used by the remaining social sciences).

Somewhere between informed critique, on the one hand, and a reasoned assessment of the relative benefits of inevitably partial and flawed sources of information, on the other hand, may lie a place where anthropology can make peace with its own fierce self-criticism, and emerge to make a more vigorous contribution to public and “scientific” discourses in these times. Anthropological studies such as those published by PoLAR, the American Anthropologist, and the American Ethnologist, contain insights that would not be obtainable from techniques designed to yield only quantitative results. This is not to dismiss quantitative research per se, which also has a place in research on large-scale societies and international phenomena.  However, qualitative anthropological insights reflect as sound an “empirical” base as those emerging from studies from other fields that employ different sorts of methodologies.  Indeed, for those seeking to understand non-Western paradigms, they provide a better empirical foothold.

Elizabeth Mertz