Centres
Research projects
Research Interests
Anthropology of law; Tibetan law and legal practices; Global legal history; The English Bar
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Phone
01865 (2)84229
An anthropologist specialising in Tibetan societies, Fernanda uses both ethnographic and historical methods to study and compare legal practices and texts. Initial research and publications on Tibet led to a monograph: The Anthropology of Law (OUP, 2013). This built on themes and debates developed in the Oxford Legalism project, which brought together scholars from anthropology, history, and other disciplines to compare wide-ranging empirical examples (Legalism, OUP, 4 vols).
These themes formed the basis for Fernanda’s research into Tibetan legal history and an AHRC-funded project on the legal history of medieval Tibet: Legal Ideology in Tibet: Politics, Practice, and Religion (2016–18) This led to a series of publications and a web-site containing source material (www.tibetanlaw.org).
In 2018 Fernanda was commissioned by UK and US publishers to write a global history of law, on which she is currently working: Civilized: how 4,000 years of law shaped the world as we know it.
Fernanda continues to publish on legal anthropology and Tibetan legal history, as well as related issues, such as comparison in law and anthropology and the relationship between empirical studies and legal theory.
Qualifications DPhil in Social Anthropology (Oxford) 2002 MSc in Social Anthropology (UCL) 1998 Called to the Bar 1988 BA in French and Philosophy (Oxford) 1986
Anthropology of law; Tibetan law and legal practices; Global legal history; The English Bar