Denying the State Through Law

In the last decades, countries across the globe have seen movements which categorically reject claims to authority and legitimacy by the state. I will investigate groups that view the state as factually non-existent based on an understanding of law that is entirely different from mainstream legal discourse. Many in these movements understand true law and sovereign power to emerge from alternative legal authorities and attempt to organize counter sovereignties based on such. Based on interviews and participant observation, this research will investigate the attraction of law as a medium of state contestation, and as a vehicle for radical politics.

Legal anthropologists have investigated how state law comes to shape the way people think about their daily life, how law achieves dominance in society. They have also investigated how law supports the generation of legitimacy by the state. This research will investigate these processes by investigating instances where it is not achieved. It will critically evaluate how law partakes both in the stabilization but also contestation of societal configurations of power.