Thinking beyond Borders: Reflections on Law and Disciplinarity

In the twenty-first century, traditional legal borders—both geographic and intellectual—have been increasingly contested. Many observers have questioned whether the long-held conceptions of sovereign state boundaries remain salient in a world of technology-accelerated transnational flows of people, capital, and information.2 Meanwhile, in unprecedented ways, scholars with training in anthropology, art, communication, critical theory, economics, ethics, history, information sciences, literature, media studies, political science, sociology, and law have begun crossing disciplinary borders to use one another’s methods and to engage in meaningful and sustained dialogue about “law” in its dramatically changing global context.3 What are the nature and implications of these two shifting legal borders? What does the future hold for them? And what role do new technologies play in this evolving story? These are some of the central questions explored by Law and Disciplinarity: Thinking beyond Borders.