The Anthropology of European Law

European law is a motley composition resulting from a multitude of sources. This contribution explores how an anthropology of law focusing on such an object first developed and how it is currently practised. The first section covers how nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century scholarship first approached the study of law and legal institutions from an anthropological point of view. Contemporary anthropologists look at these beginnings with scepticism, but an illustration of the background is necessary to understand how contemporary anthropology of law evolved out of (and eventually abandoned) an older tradition. The second section presents the purposes and the tasks of the discipline in today’s Europe. The fall of totalitarian regimes and the establishment of democracies brought about a new understanding of the purposes of law in Europe. Law and anthropology studies have thus explored a variety of themes linked to the transformations of European societies in recent decades. The third section considers how European institutions and the norms emanating from them (as opposed to national or local ones) have become an object of increasing attention from the point of view of law and anthropology scholarship. The making of a common law for Europe transforms Europe, and opens up new fields of enquiry at the same time. The conclusion highlights how the contributions coming from the field of law and anthropology have put on the research agenda crucial questions that mainstream legal studies do not address, and perhaps cannot address, except as a reflexive afterthought.