PLACES THAT COME AND GO

A Legal Anthropological Perspective on the Temporalities of Space in Plural Legal Orders

Franz von Benda-Beckmann and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann

The anthropology of law, and in particular the study of space and time in plural legal orders, is still an underrated node in the field of law and geography, despite the expanding network of scholars approaching the field from a variety of disciplines (see also Valverde, in this volume). Adding to the growing scholarship in the law and geography field so meticulously described and analyzed by the editors in the introduction to this volume, the anthropology of law offers a social science perspective on law and space that is of interest for two reasons. Anthropological studies, with their methodological emphasis on participant observation and discursive techniques for capturing emic perspectives, have generated knowledge of a great variety of "folk geographies." This term refers to local understandings and constructions of space that entail specific normative connotations, representations, and power relations, which serve as orientations in social interaction. Folk geographies could enrich the law and geography studies that thus far have been based mainly on "northern" and urban examples. In addition, the anthropology of law draws attention to plural legal constellations in which unalike and often-contradictory notions of space and boundaries come to coexist in mutual interdependence within the same physical or sociopolitical space. Multiple legal constructions of space open up diverse arenas for the exercise of political authority and the localization of rights and obligations. Showing nonstate (e.g., religious, traditional) legal constructions of space, and analyzing them in the Global North as well as in the Global South, offers a more complex perspective on the law-space-power nexus. To be sure, spaces are not necessarily multilegal, and the degree to which this might be the case varies a great deal. However, we suggest that a full-fledged legal geography should incorporate the possibility of coexisting legal spaces systematically into its theoretical and methodological framework. This offers insight into the different ways in which people perceive these spaces and operate and navigate among the spaces' various authority positions.

In the first part of our chapter we briefly elaborate on our view of legal pluralism with respect to space and place, and how we locate it in the wider sociopolitical organization. We then focus on the dynamics of concretizing legal spaces as places in plural legal orders, that is, on the temporality of legal space and place making. Following the earlier work of Harvey (1996) and others that emphasizes that space cannot exist without time, we see places as (relative) "permanences" of people, relationships, and objects located and bounded in space (Harvey 1996, 261). Places are relative in time and vary in permanence. They are "contingent on the processes that create, sustain and dissolve them" (Harvey 1996, 261; see also pp. 264 and 294). We argue not only that legal spaces and places are perpetually perishing, as Harvey pointed out, but also that they "come and go"; that is, they move and alternate with other spaces, but they do so at different paces, depending, among other things, on the kind of legal system that constitutes the space, for each legal (sub)system has characteristic ways in which spaces are being "timed." A central question we explore concerns what happens within the period in which spaces are emerging and disappearing but are not yet or no longer officially in place. In a last section we discuss how processes of time-space compression (Giddens 1996) and acceleration (Rosa 2006; Rosa and Scheuerman 2009) lead to complex and changing constellations of overlapping spaces. Delaney (2010, 138) has argued that the result of this is hyperterritoriality, a steep increase of overlapping legal spaces for which ever more "regimes of continuity" are created, to solve socioeconomic problems once and for all. Taking this argument a step further, we argue that since every newly created space has its own regulation, hyperterritoriality implies hyperregulation, that is, a steep increase of overlapping regulations that requires ever more complex legal coordination. We suggest that this poses a paradox, for the very need for coordination that is required every time such a regime is established is inhibitive for the long duration that is pursued with the regime of continuity. Instead of providing a sense of certainty, these legal spaces often generate deep feelings of uncertainty among the addressees of the regulations, because they are constantly confronted with coordinative adjustments. And if no adjustment is made, they have to cope with the changing and contradictory regulations of the overlapping legal spaces. Including the analysis of legal plurality and a pronounced time perspective may provide the geography of law with a deeper understanding of the volatile, contradictory, and fractured nature of legal space making, and of the uncertainties with which addressees of spatial regulation have to live.

WEAVING SPACE INTO LAW AND LEGAL PLURALISM

Law and Space

Space and time are important aspects of any empirical research or social theory. They form constituent elements of social life and organization that help to individuate people, social interactions, and relationships (Giddens 1984, 1985; Goldschmidt 1966; Harvey 1996, 53, 210, 264; Lash and Urry 1994, 223). Space and time are analytical concepts that point to the multidimensional nature of the physical world. Infinite space and "stellar time" (Leach 1961) are formal social constructions that allow for comparison of a broad array of more substantive constructions, such as social, religious, political, ecological, and "hydrological" spaces (spaces defined by a common hydrological system; see also Werlen 1988), ranging in scope...