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Kinship, Law and Politics

An Anatomy of Belonging

Joseph E David author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:2nd Jul '20

Currently unavailable, currently targeted to be due back around 2nd December 2024, but could change

Kinship, Law and Politics cover

An introduction to how belonging and identity have been reflected, modified, and rearticulated in crucial moments throughout history.

The book explores beyond the borders of identity politics by offering a more precise understanding of belonging as a basic and all-encompassing concern. Academics, scholars, and students in the fields of philosophy, law, history, and religious studies will benefit from these interdisciplinary analyses of belonging within kinship, law, and politics.Why are we so concerned with belonging? In what ways does our belonging constitute our identity? Is belonging a universal concept or a culturally dependent value? How does belonging situate and motivate us? Joseph E. David grapples with these questions through a genealogical analysis of ideas and concepts of belonging. His book transports readers to crucial historical moments in which perceptions of belonging have been formed, transformed, or dismantled. The cases presented here focus on the pivotal role played by belonging in kinship, law, and political order, stretching across cultural and religious contexts from eleventh-century Mediterranean religious legal debates to twentieth-century statist liberalism in Western societies. With his thorough inquiry into diverse discourses of belonging, David pushes past the politics of belonging and forces us to acknowledge just how wide-ranging and fluid notions of belonging can be.

'Not since Charles Taylor have scholars seen such a profound inquiry into the sources of selfhood and the nature of belonging in community. Joseph David draws on a stunning range of ancient and modern, familiar and forgotten figures to probe the depths of human nature and our essential bonds of marriage and family, friendship and faith, property and state. This is interdisciplinary and interreligious scholarship of the highest caliber.' John Witte, Jr., Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University
'Joseph David's book is an immensely erudite and deep exploration of the meaning of belonging and identity. David's brilliant examination of the belonging and identity in their different layers and in diverse historical settings, is of fundamental importance to the understanding of the complexity of the concept and the vital role it plays in contemporary political and cultural life.' Moshe Halbertal, New York University

ISBN: 9781108499682

Dimensions: 250mm x 175mm x 14mm

Weight: 450g

264 pages