Files and links (1)
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Open Access (License Unspecified), Open
Essay
Participatory Law Scholarship
Columbia law review, v 123(6), pp 1795-1854
01 Oct 2023
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Drawing from the experience of coauthoring scholarship with two activists who were sentenced to life without parole over three decades ago, this piece outlines the theory and practice of Participatory Law Scholarship (PLS). PLS is legal scholarship written in collaboration with authors who have no formal training in the law but rather expertise in its function and dysfunction through lived experience. By foregrounding lived experience in law's injustice, PLS unearths and disrupts the prevailing narratives undergirding the law. Through amplifying counternarratives to the law's dominant discourse, this methodology creates more space for social and legal change. By design, PLS also reminds us of the humanity behind the law, acting as a moral check and balance. Building from the tradition of Critical Race Studies and an emerging body of Movement Law Scholarship, PLS thus aims to press the boundaries of what legal scholarship traditionally looks like by evoking lived experience as evidence and developing legal meaning alongside social movements. Its methodology raises critical questions about how knowledge is produced and by whom, asking what role legal academics should play in facilitating social change in the material world. The piece also responds to skeptics who believe this approach abdicates a scholar's "moral obligation" to truth, explaining why PLS is not just legitimate but urgently needed to address the fissures and fault lines law has created.
Metrics
16 Record Views
Details
- Title
- Participatory Law Scholarship
- Creators
- Rachel Lopez - Drexel University, Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Publication Details
- Columbia law review, v 123(6), pp 1795-1854
- Publisher
- Columbia Journal Transnational Law Assoc; NEW YORK
- Number of pages
- 60
- Resource Type
- Essay
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001099796000006
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85176267414
- Other Identifier
- 991021861306304721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Law