Sorry, the book that you are looking for is not available right now.

We did a search for other books with a similar title, however there were no matches. You can try selecting from a similar category, click on the author's name, or use the search box above to find your book.

Click on the Google Preview image above to read some pages of this book!

If knowledge is power, then the power of law can be studied through the lens of knowledge. This book opens up a substantive new area of legal research--knowledge production--and presents a series of case studies showing that the hybridity and eclecticism of legal knowledge processes make it unfruitful to ask questions such as, "Is law becoming more dominated by science?" Mariana Valverde argues that legal decision making cannot be understood if one counterposes science and technology, on the one hand, to common knowledge and common sense on the other. The case studies of law's flexible collage of knowledges range from determinations of drunkenness made by liquor licensing inspectors and by police, through police testimony in "indecency" cases, to how judges define the "truth" of sexuality and the harm that obscenity poses to communities.

Valverde emphasizes that the types of knowledge that circulate in such legal arenas consist of "facts," values, and codes from numerous incompatible sources that combine to produce interesting hybrids with wide-ranging legal and social effects. Drawing on Foucaultian and other analytical tools, she cogently demonstrates that different modes of knowledge, and hence various forms of power, coexist happily.

"Law's Dream of a Common Knowledge" underlines the importance of analyzing dynamically how knowledge formation works. And it helps us to better understand the workings of power and resistance in a variety of contemporary contexts. It will interest scholars and students from disciplines including law, sociology, anthropology, history, and science-and-technology studies as well as those concerned with the particular issues raised by the case studies.

The theme of this book is broad and its philosophic argument complex while the specific case study topics are quite narrow and cutting edge. Choice Law's Dream of a Common Knowledge is an important and novel contribution towards the development of a sociology of legal knowledge... [It] is interesting, engaging and refreshing both in its thematology and its style. -- Emmanuel Melissaris The Law and Politics Book Review Valverde's book calls attention to a host of oft-overlooked decisions that, taken together, bring slow but steady changes while amounting to subtle forms of control... [T]his is an intriguing work. -- Lynn Chancer American Journal of Sociology

ISBN: 9780691086989
ISBN-10: 0691086982
Series: Cultural Lives of Law (Hardcover)
Audience: Tertiary; University or College
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 264
Published: 14th April 2003
Dimensions (cm): 23.774 x 16.358  x 2.261
Weight (kg): 0.531