Mapping the Lawscape: Spatial Law and the Body

Placing legal texts at the centre of law has led to a slavish reliance on the written word. Legal education comes to stress the technical skills of the profession. Law students graduate with neither the interest in nor the capacity for reflecting on the methods and values of their profession. Disciplines beyond their legal texts are relevant to lawyers only to the extent that they can be used to bolster their side of the argument. This fixity in thinking can become manifest in simple-minded judicial decisions when intelligence is needed, conventional decisions when creativity is called for and legally correct decisions when justice is demanded. And the danger for legal scholarship is that it becomes focused on ironing out doctrinal inconsistencies or calculating the legal tactics best suited to promoting progressive politics. Socio-legal scholars have uncovered gender-, race- and class-based discrimination in law.