Editors' Introduction

Extract

This special issue of the Law & Society Review grows out of a unique intellectual encounter: an attempt by the Association to reach beyond its usual geographical horizons and to listen to and engage in conversation with a group of scholars from a region of the world—Southeast Asia—that has received little attention within the law and society community. This conversation is significant for the Association in several ways. First, as our scholarly community becomes more aware of the globalization of our field and the interconnections between our interests and developments in other regions of the world, it behooves us to make new efforts to broaden our understanding of sociolegal issues that are important to the scholars and peoples of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and other world regions. Second, if the Association is to realize its aspirations to internationalize its membership, we should at the same time attempt to understand the scholarly interests and commitments of new colleagues with whom we seek to share our community. We must therefore find ways to listen to the voices of scholars in regions of the world whose work may not yet be familiar to the Review's general readership. Third, the infusion of new perspectives, new research issues, and new voices can enrich the dialogue among sociolegal scholars in many ways. Familiar topics—legal pluralism, the family, crime, the environment, civil rights—can be seen in a new light; and topics that now receive somewhat less attention among North American and European sociolegal scholars—indigenous peoples, law and religion, land rights—emerge as fundamentally important and deserving of renewed research interest.