Conclusions: A Socio-Legal Metatheory

Abstract

There is a tension in this book. Just as with any tension, this is both problematic and creative. Just as with any tension, it makes things much more exciting. The tension is this: on the one hand, the book attempts to engage with the ‘technical aesthetics of law’ towards which Annelise Riles (2005, p. 976) has convincingly urged legal academics. On the other hand, the book resists doing this fully, avoiding thus the risk of locking itself up in the ivory tower of law’s lingo. This would be an all too familiar space, unfrequented by non-legal scholars due to its prohibitive technicality and its self-enforced closure. The tension is palpable, not least because this book is, as our editors write in their introduction, the groundwork for nothing less than a socio-legal metatheory.