Paper short abstract:

At a time when (liberal) law fails to deliver on its promises, this talk examines ways to aspire to justice beyond the procedural and carceral logics. I will draw on a decade of ethnographic research in Turkey on judicial activism in a variety of areas (human, digital, and environmental rights).

Paper long abstract:

The law has served as both a tool and a site for rights activism in response to state and corporate atrocities, ranging from human rights violations to invasive surveillance technologies to violent dispossession of human and non-human environments. At a time when many abolitionist, black, and brown scholars have criticized liberal law for failing to deliver on its promises, what does it mean to mobilize legal mechanisms to address injustices and build for just futures? This talk speculates about ways to aspire for justice beyond the procedural and carceral logics of legal mechanisms, which might eventually amount to a decolonial legal anthropology. In thinking about justice with and beyond the law, I will draw on my decade of ethnographic research in Turkey on judicial activism in various domains (human, digital, and environmental rights).