Fear in the Lawscape
BAUMAN'S LIQUID LAW AND SOCIETY, J. Priban, ed., Dartmouth: Ashgate, 2007
23 Pages Posted: 8 Feb 2009 Last revised: 29 Nov 2010
Date Written: February 8, 2009
Abstract
This is an attempt to connect Law and Urban Geography. Thus, Law and the City are brought together on various ontologica and epistemological levels to create what can be called 'the lawscape'. The fusion is ridden with conflict, crossings and paradoxes. It is argued here that, once the ontological and epistemological connections between law and the city are drawn, fear can be observed to be lurking on either side of the boundary between the two. In this way, the concept of fear and its counterpart, anxiety, contribute to an interdisciplinary construction which is distanced from psychology and free to be linked with cinematographic, architectural, sociolegal and philosophical references, aiming at a full liquefaction and paradoxification of the ambivalence of fear as the enabler of the lawscape. Fear is seen as the motivator of the connection between law and the urban space, as well as an opportunity to venture 'further' out.
Keywords: Law and Geography, Law and Urban, Law and City, Space, Place, Fear, Anxiety, Kurosawa, Luhmann, Kierkegaard, Derrida
JEL Classification: K10, K19
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation