This volume consists of five essays by scholars working in anthropology, political science, and liberal studies in the US, who apply ethnography to contemporary societal, legal, and political phenomena. They provide case studies of affirmative action at the U. of Michigan; the H-2 visa and adversarial legalism; legal language in the context of the US government and tribal consultations, particularly with the Hopi Tribe and the US Forest Service; place-based governance identity among the civil servants responsible for the California Current large marine ecosystem; and freedom of speech on college campuses, from the perspectives of legal and public policy and using the example of a talk given by Milo Yiannopoulos at the U. of Washington.

Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College, USA. He is also a Five College Fortieth Anniversary Professor. He has written, co-written, or edited more than fifty books in the fields of law and political science.

Section I: General Articles