The Importance of Law and Society at UBC

The Law and Society Minor is an interdisciplinary and collaborative endeavor at UBC involving departments in Faculty of Arts and liaison with a strong group of law and society scholars in the Faculty of Law.  The following departments participate in the program: Anthropology, English, History, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, and Women’s Studies and Gender Relations. The Minor in Law and Society provides an attractive options for prospective undergraduate students with an interest in law, public policy, governance, and social issues.

A number of faculty members from the Faculty of Arts and from the Faculty of Law have been consulted in the development of this proposal and have taught the core course and the additional courses in the disciplines that are available to students in the Minor program. Although they share a common commitment to developing theoretical and empirical understandings of law, interests of the faculty range widely. Some are concerned with the place of law in relation to other social institutions or consider law in the context of broad social theories. Historians and anthropologists seek to understand legal systems and how they work in the context of their own societies, or how they are influenced by others. Other scholars seek to understand legal decision-making by individuals and groups or use the operations of law as a perspective for understanding ideology, culture, and identity. Whatever the issue, there is a shared interest in exploring the contours of law through a variety of methods and modes of analysis around the world and throughout human history.

Understanding the dynamics of law and society allows us to understand ourselves, our culture, and others.