Encounters of law, governance and development and the question of form

Abstract

Laws and institutions are ubiquitous in and transformative of development in ways that do not frequently present as commonly understood ‘law’, or are not foregrounded as such in development interventions. This article highlights fresh thinking from critical scholars that disrupts prevailing approaches to law and legality in development, in legal and in international development studies scholarship alike. Through the concepts of the ‘form to law’ and ‘forming of law’ in development, and the metaphor of the kaleidoscope, it offers one approach to analysing encounters within and between laws and the governance of development as a critical and reflexive project of disciplinary hiatus.