Introduction

WHAT ARE THE “wrong places” of law? If, for many inside and outside the legal academy, the right place to look for law is in the rules of judicial opinions or in the texts of statutes and constitutions, the “wrong places” are sites and spaces in which no such law—or even reference to such law—appears. These may be geographic regions beyond the reach of law, everyday practices ungoverned or ungovernable by law, or works of art that have escaped law’s constraints. Many essays in this volume look for law precisely in such “wrong places” where there seems to be no law. They find in these places not only reflections and remains of law, but also rules and practices that seem indistinguishable from law. These essays raise challenging questions about the locations of law and about law’s meaning and function. Other essays in this volume seem to do the opposite: rather than looking for law in places where law does not obviously appear, they look in statute books and courtrooms, but from perspectives that are usually presumed to have nothing to say about law. Looking at law sideways or upside down or inside out defamiliarizes law. Weird, canted angles reveal otherwise ...