Forthcoming "Decolonising Legal Studies: An Interdisciplinary Perspective" (vol. 7, 2027, no. 1)

Athena was created with the aim of exploring issues and challenges posed by globalisation, including the intensification of the meeting of cultures and traditions. This process inevitably questions the presumed centrality of Western knowledge and calls for an understanding of the ways in which Western traditions connect with and relate to the ones that have been systematically marginalised. Ultimately, this perspective stresses the importance of engaging with other approaches and cultures without claiming a position of superiority. This is precisely why it seems appropriate to dedicate an Issue to the decolonisation of legal studies, with the objective of exposing the epistemic assumptions that are inherent to legal production. Indeed, the issue of decolonising legal studies is foremost an epistemic one. 

The Issue, therefore, intends to reflect upon the Eurocentric nature of modern legal studies, in line with a strand of literature that has developed over the past decades. Indeed, decolonial legal studies have been gradually expanding across several fields of law, including international law, philosophy of law, law and religion, law and gender, constitutional law, and comparative law. The purpose of this new scholarly movement is to address the role of colonialism and supremacy of the Global North in legal production and legal scholarship, ultimately rejecting the colonial construction of categories such as national, racial, ethnic, religious, and gender classifications, and trying to imagine an alternative to traditional categories upon which modern legal systems and studies rest, including the nation-state.

The interdisciplinary and multicultural approach that will characterise the Issue will bring together scholars not only across different fields, including the ones mentioned above, but also across different geographical areas. In this way, we hope to shed light on two different yet related aspects: (i) the epistemic connection between the process of understanding things and their normativity. The underlying premise is that how we understand and interpret things directly conditions the way we think about them normatively; (ii) the contribution that marginalised traditions can give to legal thinking and legal institutional design. This is necessary to understand the interrelation between local and global designs, i.e., how local legal thought and institutions can reshape national and international legal imaginaries and arrangements.  

Overall, it appears to be a particularly relevant issue at a time when traditional Western legal categories are under increasing pressure. Indeed, the decolonisation of legal studies can help us understand how norms are made, both at the local and global levels, and reflect on whether norms can be understood as both embedded in their own local culture, as well as a valuable legal model to address global, social, and ecological crises.