Socio-Legal Studies in 2020

Abstract

This article looks back to a paper written by the author and Phil Thomas in 2000 on socio-legal studies and reflects on what has changed in the world of socio-legal studies since then. It then turns to the continued modesty of the claims that socio-legal studies researchers make for their work. The suggestion made is that socio-legal studies forms a social ecology in what is termed the ‘hyphen-space’ and that through this space social ecology theory allows much larger claims to be made about how actors and issues at different levels and scales relate to each other. To this end, the article takes an issue, an artefact, and a broad classification of ‘people’ within the sphere of international commercial law to illustrate how social ecology can be used to broaden the claims that research makes.