Ditlev Tamm: Telling legal cultures (The Normative Complex)

Ditlev Tamm (Copenhagen):
Telling legal cultures

The concept of legal cultures: Culturalization or formalization? (Chair: Nina Dethloff)

In the context of the conference:
The normative complex: Legal cultures, validity cultures and normativities

9. & 10. April 2014 | Conference Room 2 in the Rohmühle | Rheinwerkallee 2 | 53227 Bonn

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Ditlev Tamm (Copenhagen):
Legal historian. Professor for Danish legal history, European legal history, comparative law and church law, head of the Centre for Studies in Legal Culture at the faculty of law at the University of Copenhagen

Nina Dethloff (Bonn):
Legal scholar. Chair for Private Law, Private International Law, Comparative Law and European Private Law, Director of the Institute for German, European and International Family Law at the University of Bonn and Assistant Director of the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities "Law as Culture"

Werner Gephart (Bonn):
Legal scholar, sociologist and artist. Professor of Sociology at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University Bonn, founder and director of the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities "Law as Culture", editor of the volume "Recht" of the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe (MWG I/22-3)

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Conference: The normative complex: Legal cultures, validity cultures and normativities

It is no exaggeration to speak of the rediscovery of the normative dimension of social life. Although for Talcott Parsons, the normative solution of the order problem should at least offer some orientation in the confusing field of social theory, numerous approaches taken by social and cultural sciences did not dwell on this discourse. Likewise, newer culture-theoretical access points also take scant notice of the world of law and normativity.

Meanwhile, a need to deal with the basic question of the normative world anew and in novel ways is growing within the traditional disciplines dealing with questions pertaining to the normative-legal shaping of the world, i.e. jurisprudence, legal philosophy, legal theory, and also legal history.

The reason that calls for heightened attention to be paid to the "realm of the normative", as Foucault called it, is apparent: Normative weight is shifting from the nation state to transnational spaces of law and validity. Simply put, the reason can be found in processes of globalization. The simultaneous increase in personal orders of validity rekindles culturally shaped minority laws and thereby heightens the potential that encounters of legal cultures do not only end in dialog, but also in conflict. The issue of familiarizing oneself with the world of norms of the other is then not simply a question of moral recognition but a precondition for intercultural communication through the medium of law. Cognitive competencies over legal-cultural idiosyncrasies and differences are therefore not only a matter of import for specialists or for legal training, but also for economic or political actors and further also for successful daily behavior.

... - TBC -

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