This chapter uses two narratives of legalities to capture distinctive profiles of juristocratic reckoning. The first narrative centers on a legality brimming with connotative power. Instead of relying on the direct, instrumental power of human rights, a group of Burmese activists draws upon the capacity of rights to change the way they feel about themselves and generate the momentum to inspire, encourage, and rally others to take up collective political action. Although their country has once more descended into widespread insurrections, some of these activists still carry hope for human rights as they fight back or flee into exile again. The second account is about “governing through contagion,” a legality afflicting state centralization over strategies of control of infectious diseases. The Singaporean state’s strategies to regulate contagion grew out of earlier epidemics and global circulations of capital, violence, and ideas and mutated according to the entanglements of relationships among humans, animals, microorganisms, and technologies. As humans comply with, resist, or otherwise interact with strategies of control, these relationships produce “inter/dysconnectedness” that expose, perhaps exacerbate, existing injustices. Although the two narratives reflect divergent experiences with law, both illustrate a nonlinear worldview, one in which human societies, law, legalities, and thus juristocratic reckonings develop cyclically and chronologically. In one narrative this chapter offers three coexisting perspectives on juristocratic reckoning that transcend the editors’ suggestions; in the other account it shows that a more expansive chronology and cast of actors can shape the way we understand moments of law as juristocratic reckoning. What we make of a moment of law depends on where we look for legalities, where we situate it, and how we appreciate their highs and lows.

The author of this chapter, Lynette J. Chua, is a scholar of law and resistance originally from Malaysia, educated in Singapore and the US, and working in Singapore. She says that across these diverse contexts she has “always been drawn to being, and [has] always been out of place.” Chua reflects on how her out-of-place positionality enabled her to write her first two books. It was her own out of place positionality that she says first drew her to “out-of-place movements,” which allowed her to see “the strength of human agency to forge resistance against [legal] odds.” Being out of place in so many ways is what enabled her to see the importance of emotions and relationships for human rights activists, a central theme of Chua’s work on Myanmar.

Positionality in research refers to the disclosure of how an author’s self-identifications, experiences, and privileges influence research methods. A statement of positionality in a research article or other publication can enhance the validity of its empirical data as well as its theoretical contribution. However, such self-disclosure puts scholars in a vulnerable position, and those most likely to reveal how their positionality shapes their research are women, ethnic minorities, or both. At this stage of the field’s methodological development, the burdens of positionality are being carried unevenly by a tiny minority of researchers. In this book, we spotlight a group of scholars from around the world who shaped the field of law and society through their intentional awareness of how their self-identifications, experiences of marginalization, and professional privileges influenced their research questions, design, methods, and writing about the law.

The study of disputing has been a central concern of law and society scholars for nearly fifty years. Rather than focusing narrowly on cases litigated in state courts, law and society scholars broadened their perspective to include the handling of conflict in myriad fora throughout society, from neighborhood councils to consumer complaint boards to the interventions of shamans and village leaders. Law and society researchers working in Asian settings are no exception. Some earlier studies were village-based, highlighting the largely conciliatory practices of mediators who sought to maintain harmony by promoting apology, restitution, and spiritual well-being. Recent studies examine the relationship between litigation and nonjudicial dispute resolution, highlighting the ways in which courts and judges are influenced by the handling of conflict outside state law. A third type involves state’s attempts to divert litigated cases to “alternative dispute resolution” procedures established as adjuncts to the formal system. Although ADR is sometimes promoted as a restoration of traditional community mediation, law and society researchers have generally demonstrated that its close connection to the official legal system raises complex issues of justice and the protection of rights by persons who lack sufficient wealth or power to succeed within formal judicial arenas.

Legal mobilization refers to the use of law to express claims and desires in order to achieve change or protect interests. It can be carried out by individuals or by a collective of people. Importantly, legal mobilization encompasses more than going to court to litigate disputes, an action that may prove ineffective or even irrelevant in some Asian contexts. In addition to litigation, legal mobilization occurs in other ways, even when an individual or group merely articulates a problem to a confidante in terms of rights or other legal concepts. In Asia, this broader concept of legal mobilization is especially apropos, since so much “legal” activity—broadly construed—takes place far from the justice institutions the state has established. In this chapter, the readings illustrate the range of tactics used by those who mobilize the law to achieve their goals. They also illustrate both the risks and rewards associated with the invocation of legal rights in Asian societies. As the authors make clear, rights can have paradoxical effects, and can simultaneously empower and disempower or stigmatize those who use them. In some instances, however, the results are hugely beneficial to those who felt hopeless in the absence of legal protection.

This chapter illustrates how law and society scholars conduct empirical research to pursue questions and build theory about law in Asian societies. It is not a manual for how to use various research methods or for asking and answering research questions. Rather, its purpose is to provide examples of how Asian law and society scholars go about their work, what challenges they encounter, and how they address them. It features both classic and new and innovative approaches. One set of readings illustrates how researchers obtained access to their subjects and how they collected data. A second set of readings shows how researchers wrestled with aspects of their own identities in relation to the research site and the people whom they study. A third set illustrates law and society researchers practicing their craft in the digital age, using social media and other advancements in technologies to pursue their research questions. All the readings are drawn from studies that appear in earlier chapters. In this way, readers get a peek behind the curtain, so to speak, and gain a better understanding of how the authors featured in this book struggled with the challenges faced by all researchers—and how they overcame them.