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When Legal Cultures Collide, Richard F. Devlin Frsc

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In this essay, I attempt to consider the juridical significance of the Irish hunger strike of 1981. I focus on this almost unreal, but tragically too real, 'event' for two reasons. First, on the basis of the rereading or representation that I offer in this essay, the hunger strike provides an opportunity to reflect upon what is perhaps the most enduring and intractable question of social theory: the relationship between structure and agency. Specifically, it enables us to critically interrogate the aspirations and assumptions of a colonial legal structure and the agentic resistance of the juridically colonized. The second reason …