The Differing Realms of the Law

Abstract

Anthropology, including legal anthropology, is faced with a problem that may be unique in social science: in order to present the results of our field research without seriously warping the ideas, we must undertake a second job of research, on the homologous institutions of our own society, and in the scientific disciplines that have investigated those institutions. This paper is an exercise in the anthropological investigation of jurisprudence. It investigates three things: (1) definitions that jurisprudence has used, and the anthropological usefulness of such definitions, (2) the "double institutionalization" of norms and customs that comprises all legal systems, and (3) some of the problems of the association between legal institutions and certain types of political organization.