Theoretical Knowledge Issues in Russian Legal Anthropology: Afterword to a Dialogue That Didn’t Happen

Abstract

The field of legal anthropology has been developing rapidly in Russia since the 1990s. Over the post-Soviet decades, certain trends in this development have emerged. Firstly, there has been the formation of academic communities that rarely interact with each other. Thus, rather than interdisciplinarity, a situation of multidisciplinarity has developed, whereby different disciplines are formed under the same name. Secondly, there is a gap between “high theory” and empirical research. Thirdly, there is methodological eclecticism, particularly evident in the coexistence of concepts borrowed from modern Western scholarship and those inherited from the Soviet era. I characterize the theoretical approaches and concepts that have developed in Russian legal anthropology, arguing that none can claim to form the foundation for a new disciplinary paradigm. By comparing the Russian situation with the international context, I demonstrate that the ongoing decolonization of the discipline has resulted in third world countries becoming significant centers of knowledge production, thus competing with the West. Finally, I consider the conditions necessary for productive theoretical discussions between representatives of different disciplinary communities and methodological positions.