Women's Legal Histories Workshop

The study of colonial legal history has classically focused predominantly on male-centred Eurocentric narratives. Whilst there is a movement away from this tendency, with dedicated works on global legal history with geographical focuses on Africa, the Americas and Asia on the rise; those women who have throughout history been neglected into the very peripheries of law-making and/or academic writing, predominantly remain in subaltern positions in these history writings. This position is reinforced by biases inherent to archives, which are central to our historical methodologies. In this workshop, we will together focus on female legal histories from the late 19th century through to decolonization.