Postcolonial Theory & Law

Postcolonial Theory and Law Study Group, Cambridge

Introduction

The Postcolonial Theory and Law Discussion Group brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who would like to explore the potential offered by postcolonial theory in understanding the relationship between law and colonialism. We are interested in the operation and impact of laws in colonial and postcolonial contexts, including on marginalised groups who might be disproportionately affected by the coloniality embedded within metropolitan legal systems. We are keen to analyse how themes of power, domination, alterity, imperialism and globalisation manifest in domestic, regional and international legal systems. 

To pursue our interests, we meet 6-8 times a year to discuss texts that are relevant to our research interests. These can be books, book chapters, journal articles, works in progress, cases and/or any other piece of writing. Typically, one person volunteers to ‘host’ the event, assigns the reading, and facilitates the discussion. While we understand that members may be unable to attend every meeting, we do encourage regular rather than one-off attendance. We find that such ongoing engagement with the PTL community allows us to draw connections across meetings, fosters closer professional relationships and enables more productive discussions to be carried out in an environment of mutual trust.

Unless otherwise indicated, our meetings are held over lunchtime on Wednesdays, from 1pm to 2pm, in the Combination Room at Wolfson College, Cambridge CB3 9BB. Attendees are welcome to bring their lunch along to the meetings. Lunch options are also available for purchase from the Wolfson Dining Hall, which is open to all regardless of institutional affiliation. Tea, coffee and soft drinks are also available for purchase from the Wolfson Dining Hall, or from the cafe (Club Room) on the ground floor.

If you are interested in joining our mailing list and meetings, please email:

  • Tugba Basaran (The Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement) tb317@cam.ac.uk
  • Arushi Garg (Institute of Criminology) ag779@cam.ac.uk

If you are interested in attending our meetings but are struggling to access any of the assigned readings, please also contact the convenors. We might be able to help.

Calendar 

Meeting 1

This meeting will be hosted by Jamie Trinidad on 29 March 2023.

Assigned readings

  • Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 (25 February 2019), available at https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/169/169-20190225-01-00-EN.pdf
  • Philippe Sands (author) and Martin Rowson (illustrator), The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain's Colonial Legacy (Orion Publishing 2022)

Meeting 2

This meeting will be hosted by Meg Foster on 24 May 2023.

Assigned readings:

Meeting 3

This meeting will be hosted by Caroline Lanskey on 1 November 2023.

Assigned readings

  • Cunneen, C. (2011). Postcolonial perspectives for criminology (available via UNSW Faculty of Law Research Series)
  • Cunneen, C., Framing the Crimes of Colonialism: Critical Images of Aboriginal Art and Law (January 9, 2011). FRAMING CRIME: CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGY AND THE IMAGE, pp. 115-137, K. Hayward, M. Presdee, eds., Routledge, 2010, UNSW Law Research Paper No. 2011-5 (available via SSRN)

Please note that we will conduct this discussion in the Gatsby Room, which is different from our usual venue (the Combination Room). Unfortunately, we cannot allow lunch trays into the Gatsby Room. However, the Wolfson Dining Hall will be open to those who want to get lunch before, from 12:30pm. Coffee will be available in the Gatsby Room from 12:45pm.

Meeting 4 

This meeting will be hosted by Alex Jeffrey on 29 November 2023.

Assigned readings

  • al Attar, M., & Abdelkarim, S. (2023). Decolonising the curriculum in international law: entrapments in praxis and critical thought. Law and Critique, 34(1), 41-62;
  • Burgis-Kasthala, M., & Schwobel-Patel, C. (2022). Against coloniality in the international law curriculum: examining decoloniality. The Law Teacher, 56(4), 485-506.

Meeting 5

This meeting will be hosted by Ian Cross on 13 March 2024.

Assigned readings

  • Cross, I. (2024, in press). Music as formative social action. To appear in N. Thieberger, S. Treloyn, A.Harris & M. Turpin (Eds.), Keeping time. Sydney: University of Sydney Press.
  • Dolin, K. (2013). From Orpheus to Yothu Yindi: Music and Legal Cultures. Law, Culture and the Humanities, 12(1), 29-38.

Music:

  • Yothu Yindi - Tribal Voice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBYHWKPLEnE)

  • Yothu Yindi - Treaty (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7cbkxn4G8U)

  • BlekBala Mujik - Drangkinbala (https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=YqJtFV7heqc&list=OLAK5uy_l62uSTCA3iZ9Fnf7OFpQlUxyu-BFY3cQQ)

  • Bangany-Nyung Ngaya.mp3 (track 03 from Marett, A. (2005), Songs, Dreamings and Ghosts: the Wangga of North Australia, Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press), Tommy Barrtjap (voice) with Djagabunbun (didjeridu)

Meeting 6

This meeting will be hosted by Alpa Pamar on 1 May 2024.

Assigned readings

  • Brown, M., Jadhav, V. K., Raghavan, V., & Sinha, M. (2021). Imperial legacies and southern penal spaces: A study of hunting nomads in postcolonial India. Punishment & Society, 23(5), 675-696. https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745211054393

  • Bandyopadhyay, Mahuya, (2023) 'Carceral Cultures in Contemporary India', in Ana Aliverti et al (eds), Decolonizing the Criminal Question: Colonial Legacies, Contemporary Problems, Oxford: Oxford University https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192899002.003.0008

Meeting 7

The meeting will be hosted by Jonathan Liljeblad on 29 May 2024.

Assigned readings:

  • Complexities of Scale:Considering Indigenous Women’s Rights Activism in Inle Lake, Myanmar

  • Indigenous Rights & Ecocide: Addressing Environmental Protections for Indigenous Peoples in International Criminal Law

Meeting 8 

The meeting will be hosted by Lena Holzer on 23 October 2024
Wolfson College, Syndicate Room 1 at 1pm

Assigned readings:

  • Rao, Rahul. ‘A Tale of Two Atonements’. In Queering International Law. Routledge, 2017
  • Dunne, Peter. ‘LGBTI Rights and the Wrong Way to Give Aid’. Kenendy School Review 12 (2012): 66–70
  • Ekine, Sokari. ‘Beyond Anti-LGBTI Legislation: Criminalization and the Denial of Citizenship’. In Decolonizing Sexualities: Transnational Perspectives, Critical Interventions, edited by Sandeep Bakshi, Suhraiya Jivraj, and Silvia Posocco, 19–31, 2016 

Meeting 9

The meeting will be hosted by Oliver Wilson-Nunn on 28 May 2025
Wolfson College, Combination Room 2 at 1pm

  • Sieder, Rachel. ‘The Juridification of Politics’. In The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology, edited by Marie-Claire Foblets et al., 701–715. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022
  • Botero, Sandra, Daniel Brinks, and Ezequiel González-Ocantos. ‘Working in New Political Spaces: The Checkered History of Latin American Judicialization’. In The Limits of Judicialization: From Progress to Backlash in Latin America, edited by Sandra Botero, Daniel Brinks and Ezequiel González-Ocantos, 1–38. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022

Meeting 10

Hosted by Jaideep Singh Lalli from 1pm to 2pm (coffee from 12:45pm) on Wednesday 19 November 2025 in Syndicate Room 1 at Wolfson College (CB3 9BB). 

We will discuss the following materials, which attendees are expected to have read in advance:

  • Ratna Kapur, ‘The Sexual Subaltern and Law: Postcolonial Queer Imaginaries’ in Fischel and Cossman (eds), Enticements: Queer Legal Studies (NYU Press 2024) (ebook available via iDiscover)

  • Leonard Zwilling and Michael J Sweet, ‘The Evolution of Third-Sex Constructs in Ancient India: A Study in Ambiguity’ in Leslie and McGee, Invented Identities (OUP 2000) (book available via iDiscover, or librarians have indicated we can use Internet Archive)

  • Matthew Waites, ‘Contesting Colonial Criminalization: Customary Law’s Significance for Decolonizing Queer Analysis’ in Fischel and Cossman (eds), Enticements: Queer Legal Studies (NYU Press 2024) (ebook available via iDiscover)

Meeting 11

Hosted by Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan and Ashrutha Rai from 1pm to 2pm (coffee from 12:45pm) on Wednesday 28 January 2026 in Syndicate Room 1 at Wolfson College (CB3 9BB).

We will discuss the following materials, which attendees are expected to have read in advance (with a focus on historic responsibilities for climate change):

  • Grosse Ruse-Khan, Henning and Rai, Ashrutha, Intertemporality and Public Policy - Rethinking Temporal Conflict of Laws in Addressing Historic Injustices (November 4, 2024). University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 34/2024, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5010122

  • David M Scott, 'Timing the Environment in International Law: Reflections on Temporality in the Three Advisory Opinions on Climate Change' (Voelkerrechtsblog, 12 August 2025) <https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/timing-the-environment-in-international-law/>

Further reading:

Meeting 12

Hosted by Preeti Dash from 1pm to 2pm (coffee from 12:45pm) on Wednesday 11 March 2026 in Syndicate Room 1 at Wolfson College (CB3 9BB).

We will discuss the following materials, which attendees are expected to have read in advance:

  • Preeti P Dash, 'When protection becomes punishment: Caste, conservatism, and the carceral logic in Indian child protection law’ [work in progress - attached, please do not circulate further]

  • Silvana Tapia Tapia, 'Beyond Carceral Expansion: Survivors' Experiences of Using Specialised Courts for Violence against Women in Ecuador' 30 Soc. & Legal Stud. 848 (December 2021) [available through iDiscover]

Meeting 13

Hosted by Monika and Sana Shah from 1pm to 2pm (coffee from 12:45pm) on Wednesday 29 April 2026 in Syndicate Room 2 at Wolfson College (CB3 9BB)

We will discuss the following materials, which attendees are expected to have read in advance:

  • Mignolo, Walter D., and Catherine E. Walsh. 2018. “What Does It Mean to Decolonize?” In On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis, 105–34. Durham, NC: Duke University Press [available via iDiscover]

  • Gu, Ming Dong. 2023. "Is Decoloniality a New Turn in Postcolonialism?" Culture as Text 1, no. 1-2 (2023): 5-18. https://doi.org/10.1515/cat-2023-1009 [available via iDiscover]

  • Harruch, Julián. 2024. “Decoloniality and the Spectre of Modernity: Notes for a Theoretical Critique.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 43, no. 3 (2024): 251–262. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13576 [available via iDiscover]

We are grateful to Wolfson College for covering speaker travel costs in relation to this event.

If you are interested in volunteering to host a meeting around particular reading materials, please feel free to contact the convenors.