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[English] Interview: Prof. Mark Goodale – University of Oxford

Av. Semih Temizer

  • Ocak 18, 2025
  • 5 Min Read
[English] Interview: Prof. Mark Goodale – University of Oxford

We’ve talked about “Cultural Anthropology and Legal Universe”  with Mr. Prof. Mark Goodale from University of Oxford. Prior to sharing our fruitful dialog, let me briefly introduce him…

Who is Mark Goodale?

Mark Goodale holds a chair at the University of Lausanne, where he is Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology and Director of the Laboratory of Cultural and Social Anthropology (LACS). Before moving to Switzerland in 2014, he held teaching positions at George Mason University, where he was Professor of Conflict Analysis and Anthropology, and Emory University, where he served as the first Marjorie Shostak Distinguished Lecturer in Anthropology. He recently directed a four-year research project (2019-2023) on lithium industrialization, energy materialities, and green energy politics, with a focus on Bolivia, financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is the founding Series Editor of Stanford Studies in Human Rights, a leading collection in the field that has published (to-date) 29 volumes, four of which have won major book prizes.

For the academic year 2023-2024, he is a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography (SAME) and a member of St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford.

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Att. Semih Temizer: Welcome sir. Thank you for your kindness. I’d like to ask my first question: Do cultural differences and comprehensions destroy the universal law idea?
 
Prof. Mark Goodale: There are two ways to answer this question. First, by trying to reconcile cultural differences to ideas of universalism (like human rights). That is, you can argue that cultural differences and practices are just wide expressions of universal values. Of course, this doesn’t mean that all cultural differences can be reconciled to universalism, and therein lies a major source of conflict. A second way to answer this question is to pluraize the idea of universality itself, to argue that rigid expressions of universal values like human rights are too narrow and must be enlarged. This is mostly what I’ve done in my writings.
 
Att. Semih Temizer: How can the diversity of legal systems in different cultures be explained from an anthropological perspective?
 
Prof. Mark Goodale: One thing the anthropology of law demonstrates is that there is diversity in legal systems, but this diversity is not infinite. Difference cultures certainly practice different forms of justice, which can be explained by the fact that legal systems are cultural systems, so we would expect legal diversity as well. But what I found in my research on dispute resolution in rural Bolivia is that small villages used a form of what we would call mediation to resolve conflicts. Village leaders do their best to resolve conflict among people or families using a common sense approach. This is actually very common among very different kinds of legal or justice systems.
 
Att. Semih Temizer: How does legal anthropology analyzes the historical and cultural evolution of legal norms?
 
Prof. Mark Goodale: This is not really a question that concerns contemporary legal anthropology. It was a question that earlier scholars like Leopold Pospisil addressed. But the development or evolution of legal norms would not be different than the evolution of cultural norms more generally, which would have to be studied like any historical process. Keep in mind that many legal system around the world developed or were imposed through colonialism.
 
Att. Semih Temizer: How do concepts of crime and punishment vary anthropologically across different communities?
 
Prof. Mark Goodale: The answer to this question would be very similar to the answer to question 2. Concept of crime and punishment are legal concepts, which means they are ultimately cultural concepts. Again, there is diversity in crime and punishment, but not infinite diversity. You would find patterns. I would recommend here Fernanda Pirie’s book The Rule of Laws.
 
Att. Semih Temizer: Do academicians or politicians care about anthropological roots in terms of the process of creating regulations?
 
Prof. Mark Goodale: Yes, some have shown real interest. I would mention a personal connection. Some years ago, the president of Ireland began citing my books in his speeches on human rights. This led to a correspondence between us in which I sent him new material, which then would appear in a future speech. I would say, however, that this is quite rare. Anthropologists are not referenced as much as economists or political scientists in part because our methodology is difficult for many people to understand.
 
Att. Semih Temizer: Is it possible to reconcile all nations by a universal law/regulation?
 
Prof. Mark Goodale: This was the promise of the postwar human rights system. But the essential problem is with the structure of national sovereignty, which inserts a contradiction into the heart of the system. My short answer would be no, not based on the current international system.
 
Att. Semih Temizer: Finally, what would you like to say people who are interested in that correlation?
 
Prof. Mark Goodale:I would say you would need to reimagine a different international order, something I do in my book Reinventing Human Rights.
 
 

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