Methods of global legal history

Research Project

Each scholarly discipline requires continuous reflection on its methods. This is particularly true for legal history, for which the last decades’ discussions on global history and postcolonial methods have raised fundamental questions about its definition of law, its themes, methods and practices.  In recent years, we at the MPI have been thinking about what "global legal history" is and developing methods for a global legal history. We strive to apply and further develop these methods in various research projects.

In the production of legal-historical knowledge, we value collaboration with peoples whose epistemic and historical narratives have been underrepresented in the colonial research tradition of our field. With our support, indigenous communities in Bolivia (Memoria Oral Boliviana) and Peru (Multiversos Narrativos: Fuentes y Visiones Alternativas de la Historia del Derecho de Aguas y Tierras en los Andes del Perú) write their own legal history, and we engage in joint reflections with them on methods and concepts, historiographical practices, sources, and epistemologies.

Important publications in this research project (selection)

Books, Special issues

Articles, Book Chapters

Picture: Source: Planisphere by Rumold Mercator, 1587 (Wikimedia Commons)