CILHR seminar: Colonialism and Legal Knowledge: An Anthropocene Judgments Experiment
Summary
TLDRIn this thought-provoking presentation, Professor Fuki adisi from the University of Bristol explores the relationship between decolonization, legal knowledge, and the concept of the anthropos scene. Through the lens of law and literature, she challenges the traditional legal frameworks and questions the centrality of humanity in understanding justice. By examining historical cases such as Gregson and Gilbert, she delves into the role of law in perpetuating colonial exploitation and offers a critical perspective on environmental justice and the need for new legal imaginaries to address the challenges posed by the Anthropocene.
Takeaways
- 📚 The presentation introduces Professor Fuk, an authority on decolonization and legal knowledge from the University of Bristol, who discusses the relationship between colonialism, legal knowledge, and decolonization.
- 🌍 Professor Fuk's work challenges the traditional understanding of law and its role in perpetuating colonial structures, particularly in the context of environmental damage and climate change.
- 💡 The concept of the Anthropos, which centers human activity as the primary cause of environmental degradation, is critiqued for its failure to account for the broader implications of human relationships with nature and each other.
- 📖 The book by Professor Fuk aims to deconstruct the question of the relationship between decolonization and law, exploring the relevance of decolonization to legal education, research, and administration.
- 🌊 The paper discusses the 'Anthropocene judgments' experiment, which uses frameworks such as black African science fiction and indigenous knowledge to reimagine legal concepts and the role of non-human entities in legal processes.
- ⚖️ The case of Gregson and Gilbert is analyzed to highlight the law's historical role in perpetuating violence and exploitation, questioning whether the current legal framework can achieve environmental justice.
- 🌱 The presentation calls for a reevaluation of legal metaphors and the need to unsettle the centrality of humanity in our understanding of justice, considering the broader impacts of climate change and environmental devastation.
- 🔄 Professor Fuk emphasizes the importance of extratextual and extralegal sources in answering questions about modern law, suggesting that new thinking within the law is necessary to address contemporary challenges.
- 🌐 The discussion touches on the global impact of colonial exploitation and its ongoing effects, including racial injustice, environmental disaster, and the need for legal scholars to consider these factors in their work.
- 📚 The use of science fiction as a tool for legal analysis is proposed, allowing for the exploration of alternative legal frameworks and the imagining of different responses to environmental devastation.
- 🌿 The presentation concludes with a call to action for legal scholars to engage with indigenous jurisprudences and other alternative legal frameworks to better understand and address the challenges posed by climate change and environmental degradation.
Q & A
What is the main focus of Professor Fuk's research?
-The main focus of Professor Fuk's research is the relationship between decolonization, legal knowledge, and the concept of the anthropos scene. She explores how the current legal system operates within a framework influenced by colonial history and how this impacts our understanding of justice, particularly in relation to environmental damage and the rights of marginalized groups.
How does Professor Fuk challenge the traditional understanding of law in her work?
-Professor Fuk challenges the traditional understanding of law by examining its foundations in colonialism and its subsequent effects on environmental justice and the rights of indigenous peoples. She uses frameworks such as black African science fiction, indigenous knowledge, and Earth laws to imagine alternative legal systems that can better address contemporary challenges.
What is the significance of the case of Gregson and Gilbert in Professor Fuk's research?
-The case of Gregson and Gilbert is significant in Professor Fuk's research as it serves as a starting point for her exploration of justice for environmental damage from the perspective of the ocean. The case highlights the law's protection of property and profit over the protection of life and nature, which she critiques as part of the broader issue of colonial exploitation and its ongoing effects.
How does Professor Fuk address the concept of the Anthropocene in her work?
-Professor Fuk addresses the concept of the Anthropocene by recognizing the significant detrimental effects of human activity on the environment. She argues that the legal system's emphasis on human exceptionalism and the classification of certain groups as less than human has contributed to environmental disasters and climate emergencies. She calls for a rethinking of these concepts to better address the challenges posed by the Anthropocene.
What is the purpose of the 'anthropos judgments experiment' conducted by Professor Fuk?
-The purpose of the 'anthropos judgments experiment' is to explore the use of metaphors and alternative frameworks to unsettle the centrality of humanity in our understanding of justice. By considering the perspective of the sea and its inhabitants, Professor Fuk aims to challenge the current legal imaginary and imagine new forms of jurisprudence better suited to address environmental devastation.
How does Professor Fuk's work relate to the ongoing climate crisis?
-Professor Fuk's work relates to the ongoing climate crisis by examining the legal system's role in perpetuating environmental exploitation and inequality. She argues for a reevaluation of legal principles and practices that contribute to climate change and environmental disaster, advocating for a more equitable and sustainable approach to law that acknowledges the interconnectedness of all life and the environment.
What are the key themes in Professor Fuk's book on decolonization and legal knowledge?
-The key themes in Professor Fuk's book include the critique of the legal system's foundations in colonialism, the exploration of alternative legal frameworks, the relationship between law and environmental justice, and the need for a reimagining of legal knowledge to better address the challenges of the Anthropocene and ongoing colonial afterlives.
How does Professor Fuk propose the use of black African science fiction and indigenous jurisprudence in legal studies?
-Professor Fuk proposes the use of black African science fiction and indigenous jurisprudence as tools to unsettle and expand the traditional legal imaginary. These frameworks offer alternative perspectives on justice, humanity's relationship with nature, and the concept of personhood, which can help to challenge and reshape legal thought and practice.
What is the significance of the poem read by Professor Fuk at the end of her presentation?
-The poem read by Professor Fuk at the end of her presentation serves to capture and convey her thoughts on the complex issues she discusses. It emphasizes the urgency of addressing environmental devastation and the need for a radical reimagining of our relationship with the Earth and each other. The poem also highlights the importance of using creative and emotional tools, such as poetry, to enhance our understanding and response to these critical issues.
How does Professor Fuk view the role of legal scholars in the process of decolonization?
-Professor Fuk views the role of legal scholars in the process of decolonization as critical in questioning and reevaluating the terminologies and epistemologies that underpin the legal system. She believes that legal scholars should engage with indigenous jurisprudences and alternative legal frameworks to better understand and address the challenges posed by the Anthropocene and ongoing colonial legacies.
What are the limitations Professor Fuk acknowledges in her own work and in the field of legal academia?
-Professor Fuk acknowledges that her work, and the field of legal academia more broadly, has limitations in terms of its ability to directly effect change, particularly in terms of physical organizing and tangible recovery of homelands. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing these limitations and focusing on the contributions that legal scholars can make, such as providing language and frameworks that support the work of those actively engaged in decolonization efforts.
Outlines
📚 Introduction and Acknowledgements
The video begins with an introduction by James, who welcomes everyone and expresses gratitude for their participation. He introduces Professor Fukadisi, an expert in decolonization from the University of Bristol, highlighting her significant contributions to the field and her influence on the definition of colonialism. The professor, in turn, thanks James and expresses her wish to be present in person, reminiscing about her time in Lancaster and her desire to discuss the relationship between the anthropos scene, legal knowledge, and decolonization.
🌍 Decolonization and Legal Knowledge
Professor Fukadisi delves into the relevance of decolonization to legal education and practice, including research and administration. She discusses her book, which aims to deconstruct the relationship between decolonization and law, and her concerns about superficial approaches to decolonizing the university curriculum. The professor emphasizes the need for a deeper understanding of how legal knowledge operates within the context of colonization and its ongoing effects on global inequality, exploitation, and environmental disaster.
🌿 Anthropos, Law, and Environmental Justice
The discussion shifts to the anthropos scene and its implications for law and environmental justice. The professor explores the concept of justice for environmental damage from the perspective of the ocean, using frameworks from law and literature, and historical cases like Gregson and Gilbert. She examines the role of law in protecting or failing to protect life and nature, and how legal interpretations often prioritize property and profit over environmental and human well-being.
🌊 Reimagining Law through Science Fiction
The professor introduces her work on using science fiction, particularly black African science fiction, as a tool to unsettle traditional legal frameworks and imagine new forms of jurisprudence. She discusses the potential of speculative fiction to provide alternative perspectives on law and justice, and to challenge the centrality of human exceptionalism in legal thought. The professor also considers the intersections of science fiction with indigenous jurisprudences and the importance of recognizing diverse indigenous legal traditions.
🌿 Indigenous Jurisprudence and Legal Personhood
The conversation continues with a focus on indigenous jurisprudence and its conflict with modern legal concepts of personhood and property rights. The professor discusses the limitations of granting nature personality rights within a Euro-centric legal system and the need to explore how indigenous principles can be integrated into law without reducing them to Western concepts. She emphasizes the importance of questioning the foundations of modern legal knowledge and the potential of imaginative thinking to reshape legal understandings of personhood and justice.
🌍 Final Thoughts and Future Directions
In the concluding segment, the professor reflects on her academic journey and the challenges of teaching and researching law in a world marked by ongoing colonial legacies. She emphasizes the need to question the language and terminology of law, to consider alternative epistemologies, and to imagine new ways of understanding and addressing environmental devastation. The professor ends with a poetic expression of her hopes for a more equitable and sustainable future, highlighting the importance of poetry as a tool for feeling, dreaming, and envisioning new legal realities.
🤝 Closing Remarks and Questions
The session concludes with a round of questions from the audience, addressing topics such as the law of the sea, the myth of the noble savage, and the role of modernization in indigenous peoples' struggles. The professor engages with these questions, offering insights into her views on the complexities of indigenous jurisprudence, the critique of romanticizing indigenous peoples, and the potential for decolonial legal efforts to challenge and transform the legal system. The session ends with a note of appreciation for the professor's contributions and a call for continued exploration of these critical issues.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Decolonization
💡Anthropos scene
💡Legal knowledge
💡Colonialism
💡Environmental justice
💡Indigenous knowledge
💡Reparations
💡Climate justice
💡Law and literature movement
💡Speculative fiction
Highlights
Professor Fuki Adisi introduces her groundbreaking work on decolonization and legal knowledge.
Adisi's work is recognized by the Society for Legal Scholars for its impact on understanding colonialism.
The presentation focuses on the relationship between the anthropos scene, legal knowledge, and decolonization.
Adisi discusses the challenges of addressing environmental damage from the perspective of the ocean.
The case of Gregson and Gilbert in 1783 is used as a starting point to discuss justice for environmental damage.
Adisi explores the use of extratextual and extralegal sources to answer broader questions about modern law.
The concept of the Anthropocene is discussed, recognizing human activity's detrimental effect on the environment.
Adisi critiques the colonial idea of land as only private property and suggests reinstating other meanings.
The importance of centering marginalized ways of knowing and practices in addressing climate change is emphasized.
Adisi's work questions the centrality of modern law and its ability to cope with climate challenges.
The presentation discusses the need for new thinking within the law to handle environmental challenges.
Adisi's research considers the rights of climate migrants and displaced peoples, including their rights to mobility and citizenship.
The talk highlights the structural and brutal acquisition of key means of production during the European colonial project.
Adisi's work invites an unsettling of colonial ideas and a reexamination of the meaning of land and nature.
The presentation discusses the use of black African science fiction and indigenous jurisprudence to imagine alternative legal frameworks.
Adisi's work aims to push the boundaries of legal form and content to reexamine what it means to be human in this world.
The talk concludes with a reflection on the need to look beyond the language of law for survival.
Transcripts
and then uh really just just whenever
you're ready
okay and we got people uh Now sort of
coming
along okay so welcome everyone thanks
everyone for joining us uh I'm very
pleased uh to introduce Professor fuk
adisi who's uh uh from the University of
Bristol and has done uh I think sort of
groundbreaking work uh in the study of
decolonization and and has become quite
the Authority in this area um she's
quoted um in the uh Society for legal
Scholars um criteria on their website
for the the definition of of colonialism
so uh making a a real impact in this
area so she's going to um uh expand on
this point by talking today about
colonialism and legal knowledge and uh
she's going to be conducting an anthrop
anthropos judgments experiment so over
to you FL
thank you James that sounds very
scientific uh so let me attempt to share
my screen I always need to concentrate
when I do that
uh so can we see this yes we can
fabulous um so uh thank you once again
James for that introduction and also
thank you for inviting me to Lancaster I
uh I really wished I could be there uh
in person but unfortunately it does have
to be virtual and uh we were James and I
were just saying that it's a good thing
we de decided to do this online because
the trains are on strike so it would
probably have had to be cancelled or we
would have uh had to do it uh virtually
anyway um I spent a good six years in uh
Lancaster and I I still think it's one
of my favorite places in the world uh
doing a master's and a PhD at Lancaster
is one of the great joys of my life um
as James has said I want to talk about
the anthropos scene so the relationship
between uh the anthropos scene the
concept of the anthropos scene legal
knowledge and
decolonization so this particular paper
that I am given it's sort of so if you
look at the slide there I've got a
picture of uh my book which came out in
uh March I think of this year uh in
which I try and so the book itself I try
to deconstruct this answer or this
question of what does what's the
relationship between decolonization and
law uh I I have been writing about
decolonization and colonization for such
a long time uh but uh when I think this
was about 2016 2015 quite a lot of
people were talking about decolonizing
the university decolonizing the
curriculum and I was a bit unsettled
about the uh sort of almost superficial
some of the superficial answers that
were being given into this question and
so that's what led me to uh plot the
book uh as a book long monograph long uh
deconstruction of that question what's
the relevance of decolonization to the
way in which legal knowledge in law
schools operate so that is more than the
curriculum including research
Administration anything related to that
so when I finished writing sort of
drafting the book there were some things
left over
and what I'm going to be talking about
today are sort of the debris uh from
that that I questions that I felt I
hadn't answered in as much detail uh as
I would like and one of those was how do
we begin to answer the questions of the
anthropos within uh um within the law
school within the limits of what we can
do uh in law
schools um so this paper itself is part
of a series of refle ctive works that I
am trying to use to unsettle the
anthropos um the starting point of this
as I've said is is my book uh within
this paper and Within These reflective
works I use Frameworks such as black
African science fiction indigenous
knowledge Earth laws and anticolonial
Logics to imagine the sea and its
inhabitants as Central not uh outside of
the legal
imaginary uh so in this paper which is
is now a book chapter and you can see uh
on the screen the uh edited collection
to which the book chapter belongs uh
this paper relies on ideas from the law
and literature movement it also takes
the case of Gregson and Gilbert uh which
was decided in 1718 uh 1783 as its
starting point and in this uh particular
paper I consider what Justice for
environmental damage will look like from
the perspective of the ocean
um I'm going to try and talk about the
Judgment but not summarize the Judgment
because I think uh it only makes sense
in the context uh of sort of reading the
entire uh judgment and um it may sound
like it but this is not an encouragement
for you to go off and buy the book but
it's always good if you could do that
but it's I I I have tried to talk sort
of summarize the judgment and it does
just doesn't uh make any sense so I'm
I'm going to talk about the thoughts
surrounding uh the Judgment itself and
why I think it's important for us to
think in these
ways so the wider project that I'm
working on again I finished writing the
judgment and I thought well there's
things left over that I still want to
write uh I seek to explore what use uh
met metaphors are uh to unsettling the
centrality of humanity to our
understanding of justice so this very
much because I'm still working on this
uh I really particularly welcome your
thoughts on those particular questions
so the questions so one of the questions
I'm asking is if the tools we currently
have in legal knowledge are sufficient
to achieve environmental justice equally
and equitably so I am interested in
exploring the use of extratextual
sources uh and extra legal sources to
answer broader questions about the
nature of urum modern law uh as it
emerges from an ongoing project of
colonial exploitation and its entangled
afterlives to put the question
differently how does law answer the
question of what it means to live in the
devastation of time as it it is
evidenced by global inequality overe
exploitation of humanity and its
resources and continuing racial
Injustice and environmental
disaster so I consider these particular
questions in the chapter that I
submitted for the anthropocene judgments
uh as we know the concept of the
anthropocene itself recognizes that
human activity has had a significant
detrimental effect on the
environment through an unequal emphasis
of the importance and exceptionalism of
the human in the world this
exceptionalism proceeds unequally by
casting many out of the category human
through varied uh unequal
uh unjust uses of classification like
racial classifications gender
classifications class ability sexuality
indigen indigeny for instance so overex
exploitation in human relationship
relationships with each other and human
relationships with nature are managed by
what has been described by fana sulana
as Colonial uh capitalism and I
recommend uh her work very strongly in
this area one of the outcomes of the
modern Colonial uh European Colonial
project was the structural and brutal
acquisition of the key means of
production this was done by various
forms of dispossession including the
kidnap and enslavement of millions and
millions of Africans as well as the
seizure of indigenous land and natural
resources the result in destruction of
nature over consumption and false
scarcities are all implicated in
environmental disasters and climate
emergencies ultimately the anthropos
scene brings with it new challenges and
it is recognized that new thinking
within the law is necessary to handle
those
challenges so this sorry I've have gone
a slide too quickly uh this rethinking
requires a direct and engaged refusal of
colonialism's uh unequal and destru Ive
ways of living for example in my book
decolonization and legal knowledge in
relation to environmental de Devastation
I invite an unsettling of the colonial
idea of land as only private property
and ask for uh possible reinstatement of
other meanings of land and nature that
turn away from ways of living that
continue to produce climate emergency
and the destruction of the
outdoors Jennifer rice Joshua long and
Antony lender in their article against
climate apari assert that the reversal
of environmental damage requires firstly
the elimination of colonial and
capitalist understandings of private
property and land ownership that
continue to be used to justify
dispossession and exploitation secondly
they ask for a recognition of the right
the rights of climate migrants and
climate displaced peoples their rights
to Mobility citizensh ship and security
thirdly they ask for a deep commitment
to centering marginalized ways of
knowing excuse me and epistemologies and
practices in our efforts to address
climate
change and finally they ask for
reparations in various forms including
compensation repatriation and Revival of
lost
histories uh they ask for a movement for
climate Justice that seeks to pay the
climate debt owed by imperialist regimes
to historically marginalized groups and
I think it's quite apt that we're having
this conversation uh at the time cop 28
is going on um as well as the I would
say slightly hypocritical um actions
that are often taken uh at these uh
conferences so in response to what I
what what I and others see as Law's
inability to equitably cope with the
coming climate Challenge and the present
one as well uh the the entry point of
this judgment is the case of Gregson and
Gilbert uh which many people do know
about so greggson and Gilbert was
decided on appeal in
17883 uh the actual sort of summary of
The Facts of the case uh the zong was a
ship that was traveling from the British
Isles to the Americas
uh and they had way over the accepted uh
number of kidnapped uh Africans or
captive Africans on board that they were
that were being transported for
enslavement um it's also important I
think to note that the ship's Captain uh
that was his first uh voyage and had uh
previously been uh previously worked as
a ship's uh doctor on many uh voyages
as was the case in that uh in that time
the cargo of human beings was insured
against loss so as they approached the
Americas they uh believed that they were
running out of food and water supplies
and the ships Captain decided that there
was a sufficient NE necessity to throw
overboard 130 of the human beings that
They Carried uh for the purposes of
claiming insurance and so that so that
they wouldn't lose the uh advantage of
their Enterprise because if the uh
kidnapped Africans had died then they
would have not been able to make any
money uh if they had died from hunger uh
they would not have been able to make
any money but if they had thrown them
out due to this necessity they should in
their view have been able to claim uh
insurance at the trial of first instance
the claim for insurance was accepted by
the court on appeal just Mansfield
ordered a new trial due to the
presentation of new conflicting evidence
this evidence suggested that there had
been some water supplies during the
killing so during the the 130 people and
you know uh they were not thrown out all
at the same time it was over a couple of
nights that this happened so the uh
court ordered a new trial to determine
the precise course of the debts whether
they had resulted from some ex external
event so I suggest that despite the
often celebratory reading of this case
as a win for abolition uh the win for
abolition comes from things outside to
the main judgment itself as Justice
mansvi did not discount the possibility
that a sufficient necessity could
eventuate in such a case as long as they
if they had proved the necessity would
he have accepted that there was
sufficient uh reason to kill 130
people so the failure to engage
concretely with the killing of the
Africans underscores how Mansfield seem
to have foreseen exculpatory conditions
for mass murder within Euro modern legal
knowledge to protect the legal doctrine
of necessity as well as the wider
processes of insurance trade and capital
so Gregson and Gilbert I think raises
many questions about the nature of law
especially its role in the protection on
better put non protection of life and
nature as Robert cover tells us legal
interpretation takes place on a field of
pain and death ultimately the Primacy of
property and profit making operates to
perpetually put life and nature in
Jeopardy the Law's nature cannot be
divorced from the violence it eventuates
uh Dera tells us it is that law is force
it is absolute capitalization the
hyperbolic appropriation of violence
some a question that I ask is can we
really hope for human and planetary
Justice from the Corpus of law that we
have now as we have it now that has come
to us by a way of a history of producing
racialized enslavement exploitative
colonization and its afterlives
including neocolonial racial
capitalism so the Judgment I constructed
seeks to question the centrality of the
current framework of UR modern law as to
sole source of sucker for the harms of
the
anthropos it has as as its focus point
the bottom of the waters into which the
zong's souls were cast I use extra legal
and extra textual sources to provide a
comparative lens lens by Framing the
Judgment as a first-person account of a
law student who was taken in their
dreams to an underwater court to hear
the
petition the switch perspective is meant
to dislodge the curing of profit and
property making by questioning
everything we consider settled about
about the law and the Futures that we
can persit from this dislodging so what
if nature is centered and existence
under the waters is placed at the
driving seats or in the driving seat of
adjudication what questions or what
answers do we get what different
Frameworks of views of humanity and law
do we uh conceive from that so what if
the souls of the zong found new life and
new worlds Under the Sea worlds that are
currently being destroyed because human
continues to do harm to the waters in
various
ways so in writing this judgment and a
further monograph dedicated to metaphors
which is what I'm very very tiredly
attempting to do at the moment my aim is
to explore the use of other ways of
thinking to imagine forms of
jurisprudence better suited to the
volatility that environmental
Devastation
brings if the the law is unprepared for
such volatility as well as the
temporal uh of aspects of that
volatility so the laws um ideas around
around things like uh imminence
reasonable foreseeability
predictability maybe we need to think
about Frameworks beyond the law and I
think uh science fiction can provide
such a such a uh space I do often joke
with my students that it's probably just
an excuse for me to watch Doctor Who and
say that that's uh research work uh but
I think more seriously that science
fiction gives us room to uh engage or uh
sort of unsettle some of the things that
we think are settled and the law and
literature movement is a sort of wide
and settled uh movement and the science
fiction movement within legal
jurisprudence is uh has been gradually
building up and developing over the last
couple of of years uh and I think it was
at the
2021 slsa there was a whole stream
dedicated to science fiction and and law
one of course uh I was very happy to uh
join in and present at it at at it so
according to Cal death science fiction
can be useful as it has the potential to
imagine alternative worlds and imagine
radical
Alternatives within this I specifically
uh rely on black African science fiction
this I device as an umbrella term that
describes a literature genre that has
directly confronted questions of
structural racial Injustice and the
reproduction of race as a global
organizing principle in space and time
so I use the umbrella term of black
African science fiction to say uh to
describe more than afrofuturism which
has sort of received a lot of uh uh sort
of U it's more in the spotlight now but
I think it's it should be understood
within this genre that afro futurism is
only a little bit of black African
science fiction because uh one of the
reasons for that it is very much located
in the United States of America and
there lots of other uh sort of um
subgenres within this that are located
elsewhere a lot of the uh uh uh
speculative fiction for example from the
African continent the aims the Origins
do not collocate exactly with afro
futurism uh and quite a number of these
writers have suggested that they don't
write uh AFR futurism even though
sometimes are placed under the same
heading so I think black African science
fiction describes this uh genre a little
bit better and the their subgenres under
that but I don't only rely on black
African science fiction I also rely on
indigenous jurisprudences that embody
alternative ways of thinking about what
nature is and Humanity's relationship to
to it uh and I think there there's some
entanglements within black African
science fiction and Indigenous
jurisprudences but there also some
points of departure there lots of bits
of indigenous jurisprudences that are
very very old and there lots of parts of
black African science fiction that are
very relatively new and uh sort of bring
in new
technologies uh indigenous jurisprudence
often addu a personality to Nature and I
find that very interesting for example
the indigenous peoples of Colombia often
humanize the Earth as a mother character
in 2017 in New Zealand uh the country
accepted the indigenous Mari proposal
and recognized the fangu river as a
legal entity with rights and
responsibilities similar to a human
person Graham writing from uh oana so
Australia New Zealand uh T straight
Islands describes two concept ceps that
underpin jurisprudence uh from that uh
region firstly that the land is the
source of Law and secondly that no one
is alone in this world these ideas begin
to disrupt the individualism and
anthropos centricity of
law however just like the adoption of
indigenous principles in into
constitutions in South America uh
Bolivia in particular I think that
granting nature personality rights
within law comes with inherent
limitations Chief among these uh
limitations is the fact that many
indigenous jurisprudence are actually
fundamentally D diametrically distinct
from Euro modern law therefore one could
argue that granting the wanganui river
personality grants the river rights to
be a Euro modern person rather than
fully actualizing the indigenous idea of
what a person is so within my my own
work I I trouble this tendency by
exploring how far we can go practically
and imaginatively to dislodge your
modern personality as the standard
around which legal knowledge revolves
and I don't really have a clear-cut
answer to that question uh but happy to
explore that
further but my aim is to push the
boundaries of the limits of the form and
content of law to reexamine the question
what does it mean to be a person or to
put a different what does it mean to be
human in this world this is because to
question the presumptions upon which the
world making of Eur modern legal
knowledge is based the tools adopted
must have the capacity to bend the rules
of laws assumed Naturals with impunity
to go back to the question what does it
mean to be human in this world and has
the law been able across the years to
answer that question with
clarity as such we must do more more
than bend nature to fit with the demands
of law to survive at all we may have to
completely abandon our idea of law if
we're if fitting nature to foot with the
demands um or bending nature to fit with
the demands of law has not reversed has
been unable to reverse the environmental
damage that we are and and the
environmental catastrophe that is coming
then the question is how do we survive I
think speculative fiction provides us
with flexible tools to do this given us
as uh car death has says and I mentioned
earlier the potential to imagine
alternative worlds to imagine a world
where we are not destroyed and we do not
destroy each other and the Earth that we
uh currently survive on is also
preserved it is also a space within
which we can paraphrasing Patricia melza
develop new and necessary terminology to
describe our future the future that we
do need to
survive speculative fiction allows us to
depart from pre-ordained registers to
the extent of our
imagination uh in writing um these sorts
of judgments I think that phrase to the
extent of our imagination is an
important caveat in the building of
these different uh new
worlds we are restricted by our own
training in law I am particularly
restricted in by my own training as a a
previously practicing lawyer working
with an NGO and teaching a lot of
contract uh and taught law I'm also
restricted by the language in which I
write uh often writing only in English
and the structure of the story that I am
telling I have to tell WR a judgment as
a judgment is supposed to be written
with the various uh
participants uh entering into the
courtroom at the time we expect them to
enter and being able to say the things
that we only been able to say the things
we expect them to say for example using
a courtroom format flies in the face of
indigenous
jurisprudences that believe that a
person almost naturally brings with them
their ancestors into rooms that they
enter as such if we accept that this
indigenous Juris Prudence is sound is
Right a court case between the
descendants of colonizers and the
descendants of the colonized or uh
descendants of the enslaved and the
descendants of the enslavers this
writing a court case based on those uh
uh on those imaginaries throws up
certain problems in essence we would be
asking the person who is killed to be in
the room with the person who killed them
the person who was enslaved to be in the
room with their torturer and
molester and this is something that I
seek to trouble more and uh further in
my work on this theme so the like I said
this is a uh the first well not really
the first it's like 1.8 in a series of
works that I in which I'm using science
fiction to trouble how we teach
different areas of
law nevertheless I think despite these
limitations I still think it's a useful
exercise to begin to reimagine the
nature of law itself a way in which we
may begin to unsettle our acceptance of
all the structures that underpins our
realities through its
gaze like I said I I don't want to talk
about uh sort of recount the judgment to
you because it's about 6,000 words
anyway uh and that will take us all
afterno but there's certain things that
I wanted to trouble uh and I I so
initially my initial thought thought was
to rewrite uh Gregson and Gilbert but I
felt that given voice to those who had
been the victims of the zong could not
be done within the context of a
courtroom uh above ground essentially um
and beyond that it still places the
human in the driving seat if the victims
of the zong are the only people who uh
we consider so the human victims of the
zong are the only people who we consider
to be the victims of the zong we have
130 people thrown
into the the ocean uh and as uh nor Ser
uh Phillip's uh book zong tells us this
wasn't an isolated event it was common
practice at the time um and now forget
the name of the the guy who wrote this
article of um how sharks used uh during
that time changeed their uh migratory
patterns to follow the slave ships
because this was a common practice so
they would follow the slave ships
waiting for uh human cargo to be thrown
overboard so who are the victims of the
zong beyond the human victims of the
Zong and how does this practice of
throwing things into the waters and
abandoning people to the waters continue
uh and how do we conceive of this within
law is it possible to conceive of this
above ground and so uh the Judgment
itself is supposed to be a petition
brought by the
waters which raises the first question
who gets to hear this petition it cannot
be a human being who gets to hear this
petition if the petition is uh made uh
by the Waters so the water here is the
petition of the waters uh but I'm also
trying to reverse this concept of
hierarchy within that uh but also uh
have uh sort of two separate characters
uh so I resolve that uh in a way within
the Judgment but the next question then
is what's the harm how do we conceive of
harm when humanity is not in the driving
seat uh so in the writing of this
judgment we had a couple of uh seminars
where we uh sort of tried to talk
through our ideas and in one of them uh
we talked about the law of the sea and
it an interesting comment uh was made
about how the law of the sea governs
humans uh human beings authority over
the sea and not the needs of the sea and
so I Tred to conceive of harm from the
perspective of under the water uh but in
adding on in conceiving of that harm we
still need to think about the victims of
the zong so what I've try to do in that
judgment is to think through those
questions in various layers so unal this
is the human uh harm but this is the
harm to uh sort of nature in different
ways different uh aspects of nature uh
but if and if we're thinking about what
the harm to humanity is another question
would be who should speak for Humanity
based on uh the this concept of the
anthropos
scene um who is the most voiceless and I
use the uh spivak's uh question can the
abolt and speak uh we often uh to be
able to uh bring a case to court you
have to be heard by the court but what
if the court doesn't see that human
being cannot see the human being
if what if the structure of the court is
the thing that is blocking the human
being for being from being seen how do
you then begin to conceive of bringing a
claim of uh sort of narrating harm and
damage before the
court and and the final questions that I
try to answer are question of the
verdict and the sentence uh what are the
purposes of verdict and sentences within
the courtrooms that we currently operate
within and what other um uh sort of
Frameworks epistemologies around Justice
uh can we possibly conceive of and in
that sense I also sort of try and argue
that in layers from reparative Justice
to restorative justice to punitive
Justice what are those so what are the
different uh sort of outcomes that would
bring in this uh particular situation
and who gets to tell the story I think
it's always uh an important uh thing
that we need to think about especially
through the lens of the law and
literature movement uh what story is law
telling about itself and who gets to
tell that story uh often sort of gives
us a different um answer to that
question so that's a summary of the
Judgment without summarizing uh the
Judgment those are the key questions
that I try uh to answer uh so I'm going
to this is my uh final uh slide and I
want to re reiterate my central
concern as an academic within a law
school how do we teach and research law
in a world of collapsing everpresent
Colonial time how do we convey to our
students what it means to live in the
devastation of time cuz it seems that
law doesn't really have sufficient
language and uh terminology to read Life
As We Live it completely to live to read
and explain convey the meaning of the
space that we exist in to protect the
space that we exist in and to properly
account for accumulated time the effects
of human uh activity on the earth and so
to survive we may need to look beyond
the language of Law and this is uh sort
of the experiment and my sort of current
work is trying to answer in some way
that question and so that's why I end
with uh by sharing this uh short verse
so I wrote this
to capture my thoughts on these
questions it is my practice when I'm
trying to figure something out in a very
academic and almost dry way to sort of
write a poem so that I can also feel
what I'm trying to say uh in the
tradition of people like Dion Dion brand
Andrea Davis and Audrey Lord I think and
believe that poetry is not a luxury it's
a necessary tool to help us to see to
feel and to dream it helps us to think
about how we can live in relation to
each other and in relation to the Earth
that we exist that we currently only
precariously survive upon and not a in
possession of human labor human
resources or the Earth so uh reading the
poem and I'll stop um here we stand in
the ruins of time distracted as we are
by shiny steel Towers uh steel and glass
towers that kiss the sky constantly
looking away from the destruction from
which they rise away from stolen labor
depleted forests and polluted land
in these we cannot breathe from these we
cannot move in these we and the Earth
will die my friends history is coming
for us in blood soaked land in the
waters of Despair in a planet on fire
and in the devastation of time uh and
I'll stop there thank you so much for
listening than thank you very much Fuki
for an excellent presentation lots of
really interesting ideas
and what I'll do is I'll open um the uh
floor up to questions so if you'd like
to ask fuk a question then if you could
go to the uh Q&A there's a little Q&A
icon and if you click on that then uh
you can just um uh put put a question in
and we'll um we'll we'll then read them
and I'll read them uh to to fuk so uh if
you just look on the Q&A icon and you
can POS your questions uh to fuka and
will be happy to answer them um just to
sort of get going I mean this is very
much from my perspective I mean you make
you make this point about um the law of
the sea being about human needs it's um
the law of the sea convention is very
much about human needs um and and indeed
all the conservation measures actually
come with the with sort of conditions
about sustainable use so um you know we
we we wanted we want to preserve fish
because we also want to eat them um is
it possible to detach um
the sea from from these
needs all yeah I mean that's that's
essentially the question I'm trying to
answer um I don't know that it is
possible but I think we have to question
that and to keep questioning uh that I
mean uh for example I'm uh from
originally from Nigeria uh and we are
very much
canival uh it's uh you know I speak to
my vegetarian friends who visited the
country and they find it really really
difficult uh
to um sort of have their dietary needs
met because of that but over the last
couple of years for example the question
is being asked because of uh
environmental overe exploitation of uh
nature uh which is leading to conflict
because the nature of the way in which
uh cattle are raised in the country are
sort of massive grazing lands but the
those because of the uh uh what's it
called desertification the Sahara is
moving uh southwards there's fewer and
fewer grazing land so they the the
cattle raras are moving southwards which
is encroaching upon the farmlands in the
South and there's lots of quite deadly
conflict and so there's a recognition
that to stop the conflict people need to
consider uh maybe don't eat so much uh
um for for the survival of uh themselves
and once the question begins to be asked
they then consider so what about the
animal right uh you know if we don't
kill these
animals can we begin to think of them
also as life forms that need
protection uh and I think the more we
ask the questions the more we are
attuned to the needs of the sea so to
put that question back uh where you know
where you have asked it so the more I
think it's
it's it helps to begin to ask impossible
questions and I I I think the question
of possibility and you you may note from
uh my book title Reflections on Power
and possibility because a lot of the
questions about decolonization that have
been asked and a lot of the limitations
we find around what people think is
possible and I think we are only limited
by human imagination as to what is
possible uh and which is kind of why I
went from writing that sort of slightly
uh very analytical book to going into
questions of imagination and the law and
literature movement because I think we
need imagination to survive uh and that
helps us ask so rather than saying is it
possible let's try and see if it is uh
possible is that sort of answer your
question question I mean it's it's an
interesting point also I mean you sort
of raised the conflict between in
Northern Nigeria between sort of
pastoralists and and agriculturalists so
again this would be very much part of
their can we see them as indigenous
peoples their indigenous identity the
the connection that people have with
with their cattle that it's it's very
much it's very very intimate cultural
connection uh as again the The
agriculturalists Who again have a very
close connection with with their
particular source so we got two two
cultures brought into direct conflict um
through through the sort of climate um
through climate change yeah I and I
think it's it's more three cultures
because not only do you have the
agriculturalist culture and the
pastoralist culture you also have the
land as property culture uh All In
conflict on well this is my land because
I bought it and at the same time this is
my land because it was my grandfather's
land and it belongs to our family so th
those things have always been in
Conflict it's just getting you know into
sharper and uh um sharper conflict and
yes I do agree that they're sort of
indigenous epistemologies that are in
Conflict uh and being able to talk about
those in quite concrete ways about where
they come from what they do and uh sort
of the underlying underpinning ideas
behind them I think is very important to
actually find uh an answer or some sort
of
solution look at the the Q&A box still
no questions I just put a chat out if if
you'd like to if you'd like to ask for
luk here a question um please uh now
now's the CH Now's the Time why she's
here just just see if anyone's so anyone
wants to
ah there we are um yes we get yes right
um okay so we'll start with
uh with Camilo and uh let's just there's
another one coming in um I'll get to
that one in a second so Camilo asks
thank you very much for this
presentation uh more than interesting
ideas I was wondering whether uh fluk
can share um their thoughts on the
classical critique of the scholars on
the myth of the noble savage arguing
against the way in which we construct
and romanticize the idea of indigenous
peoples and their relationship with
nature yeah I I I you know I think the
the myth or the Trope of the noble
savage is a very uh interesting one uh
again it it it fits in very much with
the law and literature movement because
uh one of the ways in which the law and
literature movement is used is to
critique literary Works which include
like books but also so uh you know the
big screen uh as well as the small
screen and we see quite a lot of these
tropes here uh and I think one of the
ways to engage properly with uh
indigenous jurisprudences is to engage
with them uh and to try and put them
into practice and try and I mean when I
say put them into practice I mean engage
with them in our work and sort of put uh
uh do some analysis with them and uh
think about how they work in practice
and that that's kind of what I try and
of the things I try to do in this
particular chapter but also uh in my
work uh as a whole uh to not fall you
know under the Spell essentially of that
myth because the the idea of the noble
savage uh sort of and the uh sort of
indigenous people's relationship with
nature presupposes a sort of almost
Detachment and lack of complexity in in
their Humanity in the in the humanity of
indigenous peoples I think one of the
things that it's important to note and
we've already touched upon this is the
way in which indigenous jurisprudences
are also in conflict with each other and
that there's just there's not just one
uh sort of indigenous uh jurisprudence
the second thing is to uh and this also
applies to our thoughts or ideas on
decolonization is to think about how we
engage with them and the purposes for
which we engage with them I think one of
the primary purposes is survival which
is a forward-looking aspect not a
backward looking uh one so we're not or
let me put it this way I don't think we
should be engaging with indigenous
jurisprudences just for the purposes of
engaging with them uh I think we need to
be engaging with them for purposes of
Justice
survival into the future of every one uh
as as best as we can considering how uh
sort of uh exploited and depleted the
Earth already
is okay and we got another one uh it's
Anonymous um do you think indigenous
peoples really need the modernization to
get them close to the recovery of their
Homeland particularly related to the
environmental issues that nowadays
happening well I think that depends on
what we consider to be modernization um
uh
I think uh what's his name Walter minolo
for example Annabel kianu uh those are
two writers that talk about you know
coloniality and modernity I think um
what's his name now Nelson Maldonado
Torres also talks about that how
coloniality and modernity are
constitutive of each other so if we're
thinking about modernization in a
kiano um molo sense then what we're
saying is do they need colonizing ation
to get them to recovery of their
Homeland which is in itself
contradictory because that's how they uh
lost their Homeland so I I do struggle
with the concept of
modernization uh for uh for that reason
but I think it goes back to what I was
saying in response to the first question
how do we get to the future the future
is not necessarily modernization and I
have a whole chapter in my book where I
talk about time and how uh the concept
of Euro modern time uh often suggest
that we are rapidly that progress is
happening because we are moving sort of
forward but that's not necessarily
progress and therefore going to the
future may need us to break from certain
uh um of tropes from the past and that's
progress so modernization I think often
gets trapped in that where you know time
is passing and we're becoming more
modern and I think for that reason I
divorce most of my
uh explanation of surviving into the
future from modernization or modernity
what I think is needed for Recovery of
Homeland especially from the perspective
of legal Scholars to you know to of uh I
I often think it's important to remind
legal Scholars that we're not that
powerful H we're not we don't do that
much um uh if you think for example of
the uh indigenous movements in places
like New Zealand Australia Canada there
are people who are not in law schools
who are doing uh actual physical work in
trying to sort of uh recover uh you know
like the landback uh
movements uh that's different work from
what we're doing for especially for
lawyers academics a lot of our work is
we sit in uh a sort of a dark crowded
room like this one and do some thinking
and do some writing for me surviving
into the future means to question the
terminologies the epistemologies that we
are using so that when those who are
actually doing physical organizing work
uh when they make their move we will
have the language to understand it in
some cases to give it power or to give
it uh speed to make it easier to convey
and I think that's that is our work and
I I you know I want to be quite careful
about saying this work is going to get
people their Homeland back because I
yeah I think I I don't think we we we're
anywhere we do sometimes and you see
academics thinking of themselves as
radical activists but uh I I begin to
realize more and more the limitations of
what we're doing you know we write uh I
I wrote a book which costs about
80s like that does
unless I throw it at someone it doesn't
make much happen unless someone buys it
and reads it uh so I think there's a
limits to that it's its radical ability
to recover
homelands um just uh no no new questions
at the moment really I think Final Call
any questions give a couple of minutes
and see if we if we get any any further
questions and and then I think um we'll
leave it there there
yeah last schol any any further
questions OHA
um so we got I got a um a question from
Franchesca
who asks uh how do you think that
decolonial legal efforts interact with
the continued use of the law to uphold
colonialism colonization for example
within environmental violence cases in
North
America oh that that's a big question
I'm not sure I've got enough time um I
mean that's my
book essentially is the because I think
for
me the question is is the law as it as
we have it now and we're talking
specifically about Euro modern law and
not like indigenous jurisprudences we're
talking about not just the content but
the nature uh and that's what I examine
in uh decolonization and legal knowledge
the nature of the law uh and I examine
three main things uh around its nature
so uh I mentioned a couple of things in
my talk just now the first one how does
the law construct what it means to be
human and how does that you know how is
that in some way sometimes distinct from
the legal person so can the law see our
Humanity can the law really protect our
Humanity especially as our humanity is
uh which is a second aspect often linked
to the land we need to survive so can
the law see human beings as we are but
also human beings as we are as much as
we are connected to the land does the
law is the law actually designed for
that or does the laws just see human
beings as legal persons individuals and
the land as a property commodity and
then uh the passage of time which I
talked about is the law really equipped
to for example link uh the dispossession
of uh indigenous Landing the Americas in
the 1500s with uh uh Devastation
environmental violence to the land and
to human beings in 2023 the law doesn't
work that way right and so for me
decolonization has to recognize those
things so decolonial legal efforts
covers a wide uh so in in uh Francesca's
question covers a wide range of
different uh sort of avenues of how
people have conceived of decolonization
and how people can conceive of
decolonization uh and that's why I said
that's a whole that's a whole sort of
big big question but for me it the main
if I was going to summarize or if I was
going to attempt to summarize is to
think about the design of the law rather
than you know this is decolonization or
this is not decolonization I think we
also need to look at the law because I I
I I one of the driving forces behind
writing the book was the fear that
people were going let's decolonize this
thing but they were not thinking about
what does decolonization mean and what
does this thing mean and if you put them
together what does that mean uh and I
found that quite a number of people were
talking at Cross purposes about you know
we would say things like decolonize the
museum uh and that ended up just being
changing the plaque on a stolen artifact
to this was taken and nothing nothing
else uh but that happens uh and I uh so
to try and answer the question uh I
think we need to explore and break down
our terminology and uh question where we
want what what do we want the outcome to
be and how can we use the tools of Law
and decolonization together or
separately to get to those
outcomes I think uh I think we'll uh
leave leave things there I think U yep
um so uh just uh uh just like everyone
uh thank you very much for joining us
and thank you again fuk for an excellent
presentation uh lots and lots of
interesting ideas there so um I know you
can't give her give her a round of
applause
but thank you very much and you know um
uh we all very much appreciate uh
appreciate your talk so U and best of
luck with with your work um so thank you
thank you so much thank you James and uh
thank you everyone for turning up uh I
know it's not beautiful weather but it's
always great to to have people listen to
you thank you so much
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