58吃瓜

SA4062 Anthropology of Law

Academic year

2026 to 2027 Semester 1

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Key module information

SCOTCAT credits

30

The Scottish Credit Accumulation and Transfer (SCOTCAT) system allows credits gained in Scotland to be transferred between institutions. The number of credits associated with a module gives an indication of the amount of learning effort required by the learner. European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits are half the value of SCOTCAT credits.

SCQF level

SCQF level 10

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) provides an indication of the complexity of award qualifications and associated learning and operates on an ascending numeric scale from Levels 1-12 with SCQF Level 10 equating to a Scottish undergraduate Honours degree.

Availability restrictions

Available only to Honours Social Anthropolgy students unless with permission of the module convenor.

Planned timetable

To be confirmed.

This information is given as indicative. Timetable may change at short notice depending on room availability.

Module coordinator

Dr M A Demian

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module Staff

Dr M Demian

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module description

This module offers an opportunity to engage with the long relationship between law and anthropology. This relationship stretches from the origins of anthropology when Victorian ethnologists tried to work out the 鈥榬ules鈥� by which societies were organised, through an interest in describing jurisprudential systems in non-European societies during the era of decolonisation in the mid-twentieth century, to present day concerns about the ways that laws, lawmaking, and lawbreaking can generate both constraints and liberatory potentials for a rapidly changing world. This is not a 鈥榣aw module鈥�, but one in which law is treated as an ethnographic, social, and political phenomenon. As such, the module makes use of a broad literature from anthropology, legal history and philosophy, and socio-legal studies.

Assessment pattern

Examination = 50%, Coursework = 50%

Re-assessment

3000-word essay

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact

1 lecture x 11 weeks, 1 seminar x 11 weeks, 1 case study presentation session.

Scheduled learning hours

35

The number of compulsory student:staff contact hours over the period of the module.

Guided independent study hours

265

The number of hours that students are expected to invest in independent study over the period of the module.

Intended learning outcomes

  • Understand how the history of legal anthropology has contributed to anthropology as a discipline, and shaped socio-legal studies more broadly
  • Apply their knowledge of this history to a contemporary problem in law and society
  • Design a research project according to their own interests
  • Present their project to an audience using a podcasting platform