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Hands in Cont(r)act: The Resiliency of Business Handshakes in Pandemic Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2019

Sheryl N. Hamilton
Sheryl N. Hamilton*
Affiliation:
Department of Law and Legal Studies and School of Journalism and Communication Carleton Universitysheryl.hamilton@carleton.ca
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Abstract

This article examines the persistence of the handshake in business circles despite its implication in the spread of communicable disease in contemporary pandemic culture. An examination of business etiquette discourse suggests that even during disease outbreaks or flu season, the business handshake remains an important visual and haptic legal gesture. While it may no longer produce a binding legal contract, it stages the parties as contractable subjects, as claiming the status of autonomous individuals committed to defining their intersubjective relationship through the norms of contract. The business handshake thus operates as a cultural site for the complex interaction of bodies and law, and the production of masculine, haptic-legal subjectivity.

Résumé

Cet article examine la persistance de la pratique de la poignée de main dans les milieux d’affaires malgré son implication dans la propagation des maladies transmissibles dans la culture pandémique contemporaine. Un examen du discours sur l’étiquette des affaires suggère que même au plus fort des épidémies ou pendant la saison de la grippe, la poignée de main commerciale demeure un geste juridique visuel et haptique important. Bien que la poignée de main ne produise plus de contrat juridiquement contraignant, elle présente les parties en tant que sujets contractuels qui revendiquent le statut d’individus autonomes engagés à définir leur relation intersubjective à travers les normes du contrat. La poignée de main dans les milieux d’affaires opère comme un espace culturel pour l’interaction complexe des corps et du droit ainsi que pour la production d’une subjectivité masculine et hapto-juridique.

Keywords

hapticslaw and touchcontract lawlaw and the sensespandemic culturehaptiquedroit et toucherdroit contractueldroit et les sensculture pandémique
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 34 , Special Issue 2: Vers une déstabilisation du sensorium du droit: Étude de la jurisprudence des sens / Troubling Law’s Sensorium: Explorations in Sensational Jurisprudence , August 2019 , pp. 343 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2019 

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Footnotes

*

This analysis benefitted immensely from the thoughtful and generous remarks of Sean Mulcahy, as well as from the feedback and suggestions of all participants in the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded workshop, The Othered Senses, held May 1–3, 2018. The suggestions and critiques of the anonymous reviewers also enhanced the clarity of the analysis. Any remaining limitations are my own.

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