Reading International Law as Stories

About this episode

Prof Tamsin Paige discusses the role of storytelling in understanding international law as narratives of global society.

Speaker: Prof Tamsin Paige, Deakin Law School Lecture summary: Stories serve an integral role in society as, among other things, a meaning making tool. As a method of meaning making, stories are relational and allow the storyteller to assist their audience in understanding ideas, concepts, and experiences that lie beyond their lived experiences. Using this understanding and starting point, I ask what happens if we read international law as an iterative archive of stories about global society? I will start by exploring the meaning making function that storytelling serves in society, and then consider how international law, be it treaties, custom, case law or other legal instruments, can be read as official stories of the society that produced them. Tamsin Phillipa Paige is an Associate Professor with Deakin Law School. Her work is interdisciplinary in nature, using qualitative sociological methods to analyse international law (with a focus on application of law and the impact it has on society). She also does law and literature research using popular fiction to understand social perceptions of the law. Her work has examined (among other things) Somali piracy, UN Security Council…

People in this episode

Guest: Prof Tamsin Paige

Topics covered

• international law
• storytelling
• society
• education
• politics

Keywords

• meaning making
• international law
• treaties
• case law
• storytelling
• society
• qualitative methods
• law and literature
• Somali piracy
• conflict based sexual violence

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Reading International Law as Stories

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