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Latina And Latino Critical Legal Theory: Latcrit Theory, Praxis And Community, Marc-Tizoc Gonzaléz, Sarudzayi Matambanadzo, Sheila I. Vélez Martínez

Faculty Scholarship

LatCrit theory is a relatively recent genre of critical “outsider jurisprudence” – a category of contemporary scholarship including critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, critical race feminism, Asian American legal scholarship and queer theory. This paper overviews LatCrit’s foundational propositions, key contributions, and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. The paper organizes this conversation highlighting Latcrit’s theory, community and praxis.

A teoria LatCrit é um gênero relativamente recente de teoria do direito “outsider” …

Latina And Latino Critical Legal Theory: Latcrit Theory, Praxis And Community, Marc Tizoc Gonzaléz, Sarudzayi M. Matambanadzo, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

LatCrit theory is a relatively recent genre of critical “outsider jurisprudence” – a category of contemporary scholarship including critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, critical race feminism, Asian American legal scholarship and queer theory. This paper overviews LatCrit’s foundational propositions, key contributions, and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. The paper organizes this conversation highlighting Latcrit’s theory, community and praxis.

Foreword: The Dispossessed Majority: Resisting The Second Redemption In América Posfascista (Postfascist America) With Latcrit Scholarship, Community, And Praxis Amidst The Global Pandemic, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

As LatCrit reaches its twenty-fifth anniversary, we aspire for this symposium Foreword to remind its readers of LatCrit’s foundational propositions and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. Working for lasting social change from an antisubordination perspective enables us to see the myriad laws, regulations, policies, and practices that, by intent or effect, enforce the inferior social status of historically- and contemporarily-oppressed groups. In turn, working with a perspective and principle of antisubordination can inspire us to …

Visualizing Abolition: Two Graphic Novels And A Critical Approach To Mass Incarceration For The Composition Classroom, Michael Sutcliffe

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This article outlines two graphic novels and an accompanying activity designed to unpack complicated intersections between racism, poverty, and (d)evolving criminal-legal policy. Over 2 million adults are held in U.S. prison facilities, and several million more are under custodial supervision, and it has become clearly unsustainable. In the last decade, there has been a shift in media conversations about criminality, yet only a few suggest decreasing our reliance upon incarceration. In meaningfully different ways, the two novels trace the development of incarceration from its roots in slavery to its contemporary anti-democratic iteration and offer an underpublicized alternative.

Critical and community …

Towards An Outcrit Pedagogy Of Anti-Subordination In The Classroom, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

This article discusses how traditional teaching practices can reinforce systemic discrimination, exclusion, subordination and oppression within the classroom in particular detriment to women and students of color. The article traces the discussions about pedagogy in Outcrit literature and proposes that Outcrit scholars teaching techniques within the classroom should reflect anti-subordination praxis in teaching. Drawing from the work of Freire, Bell and others, the article proposes that teaching from an anti-subordination perspective requires a praxis of collaborative, non-hierarchical teaching that calls for an epistemological shift. A pedagogy that frees the student to think independently and leads to an experience where there …

Queer Desires And Critical Pedagogies In Higher Education: Reflections On The Transformative Potential Of Non-Normative Learning Desires In The Classroom, Jennifer Fraser, Sarah Lamble

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article considers what a queer approach might offer in addressing some of the challenges of higher education in the contemporary neoliberal landscape. Despite a rich literature on queer issues in the classroom, most of the existing scholarship has focused on engaging queer students, being a queer teacher, or teaching queer content in the curriculum. Very little work has focused on what it means to take a queer approach to pedagogic techniques or how such an approach might impact educational practices more broadly. We ask: What does it mean in theory and practice to “queer” our teaching methods? What role …

Framing Supervisory Relationships In Clinical Law: The Role Of Critical Pedagogy, Gemma Smyth, Marion Overholt

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Clinical work in law offers important opportunities for students to learn critical, reflective and politicized approaches to legal identity and practice. Such an approach is most meaningful when it is engaged by supervising lawyers and social workers in a clinical placement. The authors of this article, the Academic Clinic Director and Executive Director of two Windsor-based clinic programs, offer context, perspective and examples of how critical pedagogy (influenced by, but distinct from, critical legal studies) provides a roadmap for supervising lawyers and the programs in which they work. The paper briefly sets the context of the authors' teaching and practice. …

Experiential Education As Critical Pedagogy: Enhancing The Law School Experience, Spearit, Stephanie Ledesma

Articles

This article examines the shift to greater experiential education in law school through the lens of critical pedagogy. At its base, critical pedagogy is about devising more equitable methods of teaching, helping students develop consciousness of freedom, and helping them connect knowledge to power. The insights of critical pedagogy are valuable for a fuller understanding of experiential education and its potential to affect students in profound ways, particularly as a means of empowerment. Although this is an understudied area of pedagogical scholarship, power relations are at the heart of legal education. Critical pedagogy offers a frame for considering how experiential …

Against Practice, Anthony V. Alfieri

Michigan Law Review

This Review examines the theory/practice dichotomy in legal education through the prism of the Carnegie Foundation's Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law. Descriptively, it argues that the Foundation's investigation of law school curricular deficiencies in the areas of clinical-lawyer skills, professionalism, and public service overlooks the relevance of critical pedagogies in teaching students how to deal with difference-based identity and how to build cross-cultural community in diverse, multicultural practice settings differentiated by mutable and immutable characteristics such as class, gender, and race. Prescriptively, it argues that the Foundation's remedial call for the curricular integration of clinical lawyer …

Latcrit Praxis To Heal Fractured Communities, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores LatCrit praxis as a healing tool. Before turning to LatCrit practice, let me offer a preliminary observation that many Latinos are troubled by leading divided lives in fractured communities. This is exacerbated by social conditioning which encourages Latinos, as well as other outsiders, to fragment their identities. One of the benefits of LatCrit theory is that it encourages the process of working toward wholeness. At a recent conference which looked at the courage of those who have decided to live lives divided no more, Parker Palmer, the plenary speaker, suggested that the spark which causes people to …