Introduction. Through the Lens of the Law: Court Cases and Social Issues in India

Abstract

For anthropologists as well as for historians, law practices and their discursive productions provide a way of studying interactions and decisions in a variety of domains of social and political life—from social and family relationships to issues such as criminality, environmental protection, natural resource management, religious practices, or human rights. The following studies deal with such issues by using the “lens of the law” as a vantage point over society, giving access to sometimes intimate situations otherwise difficult …