Discuss scholarly articles or book sections on law and society in Asia with other postgraduate students.
Creative Approaches to Asian Law
Despite its perceived marginality, the study of the laws of Asian countries (Asian law) has consistently attracted considerable interest. Many elite law schools in the Western hemisphere offer courses on Asian legal systems and have established dedicated Centres or Chairs in “Asian Law.” In recent years, this has been accompanied by the founding of several law journals with a geographical focus on Asia, while a growing number of Asian scholars are publishing their work internationally, often with the ambition of allowing Asian experiences to contribute to the broader development of their respective field of law.
Notwithstanding these developments, the term “Asian law” has always been shrouded in complexity, particularly regarding how it ought to be approached. Should it be viewed as a “mere projection of Western ideas,” given the extensive transplantation of Western [European] legal concepts into modern Asian legal systems as a consequence of colonialism and later globalisation? Or should it be understood as a distinct species of law in its own right, shaped by the cultural, economic, and political contexts of individual Asian societies, which have vernacularised their understanding of these transplanted ideas in markedly different ways? These complexities are further compounded by the plurality of identities within Asian societies themselves, hence, scholars writing about law in Asian countries may – consciously or not – project a worldview that is not always shared by the society, or segment of society, they are studying.
It is precisely these intricacies that animated us as we designed the ALC/CILIS Reading Group 2026 reading list. We are aware that the term “Asian law” has always carried a contested meaning, thus, giving rise to a wide variety of approaches. However, rather than treating this contestation as a hindrance, we believe that it – coupled with scholars’ personal struggles with identity and positionality when writing about law in Asia – can itself become a source of inspiration that has the potential to stimulate the appearance of more creative approaches that could challenge orthodoxies within our understanding of law that were once celebrated as progressive.With this in mind, the reading list for this series has been carefully curated to include works covering various topics such as farmworker law, sexual minority rights, law and literature, and urban development in Asia.
In each session, we will discuss how the authors of the assigned works grapple with the notion of “Asia”, whether in the way they approach law in Asian societies they are studying, or, in other cases, in the way they approach non-Asian law as Asians. We welcome open dialogue and engagement from fellow students and researchers on the findings in the discussed works. In particular, we are keen to hear their views about the discussed works based on their experience approaching Asia in their own research projects.
Banner image: Ten Thousand Tigers, by Ho Tzu Nuen
The Reading Group will meet monthly on Thursdays from 13:00 to 14:00 in either room 831 or 722 (see below), with snacks provided by the ALC and CILIS.
The Reading Group is coordinated in 2026 by the ALC/CILIS Graduate Researcher Academic Associates, Earn Asanasak, and Eryanto Nugroho. Please contact them if you have any queries or suggestions at all.
If you are a postgraduate student studying at the University of Melbourne and would be interested in attending, please contact Kathryn Taylor.
Semester 1, 2026
- SESSION 1 9 April
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ROOM 831
Casual Gathering
As we settle into the new academic year, the ALC and CILIS are hosting a casual gathering for PhD candidates with an interest in Asian jurisdictions. It will be a relaxed opportunity to meet one another and chat about our research and beyond.
- SESSION 2 7 May
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ROOM 831
Positioning ourselves as scholars studying Asian Law
In our first substantive session, we’ll discuss an article that explores why Sundanese farmworkers often reject formal state legal systems. The authors argue that these legal mechanisms are built on a "rational actor" model that feels fundamentally foreign to the workers' own sense of self.
Beyond the findings, this piece raises an interesting question of positionality for scholars conducting fieldwork in Asia on Asian law. The authors – which comprised of both Asian and Non-Asian – discussed how they adjusted their positionality as they went along with their research
Main reading:
Beth Lyon and Pranoto Iskandar, ‘Relational self and farmworker law reform: the case of Indonesia’ (2024) 56 Legal Pluralism & Critical Social Analysis 616-634.
- SESSION 3 4 June
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ROOM 831
The Price of Positionality
While the previous sessions approached the question of positionality in an optimistic light – particularly as a source of creativity – this session turns to the negative costs that can arise when scholars, especially those from marginalised backgrounds, choose to be open about their positionality in their work. This session will also explore how an out-of-place positionality can, at times, enable marginalised scholars in Asia to see things differently and with greater empathy in their work.
Main reading:
Mark Fathi Massoud, ‘The price of positionality: assessing the benefits and burdens of self-identification in research methods’ (2022) 49 Journal of Law and Society 64-86.
Additional Reading:
Lynette J. Chua, ‘Feeling at Home Outside: Embracing Out-of-Placeness in the Study of Law and Resistance’ in Lynette J. Chua and Mark Fathi Massoud (eds.), Out of Place: Fieldwork and Positionality in Law and Society (Cambridge University Press, 2024) 103-118.
- SESSION 4 2 July 16:00 to 17:00
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ROOM 831
The Symbolic Approach to Law
For this session, we are thrilled to welcome the author via Zoom to discuss his forthcoming book. We will explore the author’s creative approach, ‘the symbolic approach’, to examine sexual minority rights in Indonesia and beyond.
Main reading:
Ignatius Yordan Nugraha, The Symbolic Constitution: Constitutional Identity and Sexual Minority Rights (Forthcoming, Oxford University Press)
Link: The chapter will be circulated via email closer to the date
Semester 2, 2026
- SESSION 5 6 August
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ROOM 277
“Asian” Literature as Method
This session will explore the creative use of Chinese literature to shed light on anti-corruption practices in common law. The article prompts us to reconsider not only the geographical division between Asia and the West, but also whether Asian literature can be employed as a method to study law in jurisdictions beyond Asia. Reading the article also reminds us to revisit a classical text in Asian studies, ‘Asia As Methods’ by Kuan-Hsing Chen (2010).
Main Reading:
Tina Yao, ‘Judging Otherwise: Allegorizing Anti-Corruption Laws Through Mo Yan’s Crocodile’ (2026) Law & Literature 1-23
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2026.2627119
Additional Reading:
Chen, Kuan-Hsing. "Chapter 5 Asia as Method: Overcoming the Present Conditions of Knowledge Production" Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization, (Duke University Press, 2010) 211-256.
- SESSION 6 3 September
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ROOM 722
Reformation of Law in Thailand
In this session, we move on to discuss the trajectory of legal modernisation in Thailand. In this piece, Andrew Harding examines the role of King Mongkut (1851–1868) in setting Thailand on the path of modernisation. He narrates this story through the Wako incident, in which King Mongkut successfully predicted a total solar eclipse using Western mathematical calculation, whereas his court astrologers, who relied on traditional Siamese cosmological knowledge, had predicted only a partial eclipse. Harding views this incident as helping to shape the trajectory of legal modernisation in Thailand, since the success of Mongkut’s prediction not only symbolised the inevitability of modernisation, but also strengthened the position of the monarch – as the central actor in that process – beyond the constraints of the Thammasat (traditional Siamese religious law) that had previously limited royal power. Harding thus diagnoses the recurring problems of Thailand’s legal modernisation, marked by repeated coups and half-hearted legal rationalisation as a consequence of the path first set in motion by the Wako incident.
Main Reading
Andrew James Harding, 'The Eclipse of the Astrologers: King Mongkut, His Successors, and the Reformation of Law in Thailand' in Pip Nicholson and Sarah Biddulph, Examining Practice, Interrogating Theory: Comparative Legal Studies in Asia (Brill, 2008) 305-339.
- SESSION 7 1 October
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ROOM 722
Jurists and Islamic (legal) tradition
In this session, we delve into one of the largest legal traditions in Asia, the Islamic tradition. In his chapter, Adil Hasan Khan examines how the separation between adab (the ethics governing the conduct of the two most important actors within the Islamic legal tradition, the mufti (scholar) and the qadi (judge)) and the actual practice of Islamic law by the British colonial rule in South Asia contributed to the destruction of the Islamic tradition itself, which does not, in its original form, separate ethics from law or the religious from the secular in the manner that modern secular law does. As his chapter notes, however, this did not prevent the inheritors of this tradition (of whom the author consider himself part of) from resisting such destruction, as demonstrated by the revivalist movement within the Deobandi school in South Asia and the Al-Azhar-led Islamic revivalism in Egypt, both of which incorporated the mystical and spiritual ethics of Sufism into the conduct of jurists in the newly colonial-created Sharia courts.
On a related note, this session also includes an excerpt from Shahab Ahmed’s book (What is Islam?), which criticises the legalist reading of Islam that has led the tradition to be viewed predominantly as a legal one. Ahmed reveals that Islam, as a tradition, is far richer than law alone. He illustrated this through the supra-sharia truth-claims of Sufism, some of which held that the law (sharia) is nullified once one grasps the real truth (haqiqat), and through the wine-drinking customs of several well-known historical Muslim figures, who nonetheless insisted on their standing as good Muslims.
Main Reading:
Adil Hasan Khan, ‘Conducting office: Inheriting conduct manuals for jurists in the Islamic legal tradition' in Peter Goodrich and Shaun McVeigh (eds.), Law, Ethics, and the Office of the Jurist (Routledge, 2025).
Additional Reading:
Shahab Ahmed, 'Chapter 2: Islam as Law, islams-not-Islam, Islamic and Islamicate, Religion and Culture, Culture and Civilization' in What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton University Press, 2016) pp. 113-129.
- SESSION 8 5 November
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ROOM 722
Emotion and Grief in Researching Asian Law
In this penultimate session, we will read the Introduction chapter from the recently published book by Melissa Crouch, 'The Palimpsest Constitution: The Social Life of Constitutions in Myanmar'. Employing the method of constitutional ethnography in studying the struggle for constitutional design and endurance in Myanmar, Crouch deliberately abandons the optimistic tone that characterises mainstream scholarship on constitutional design. This decision was shaped by Crouch's personal grief, particularly in coming to terms with the assassination of U Ko Ni, a well-known proponent of democratic constitutional reform in Myanmar whom Crouch had known personally. Through her work, we will discuss how grief and personal experience can shape the way scholars approach their research on Asian societies – something not unfamiliar in the neighbouring field of anthropology, as illustrated by the ethnographer Renato Rosaldo's personal griefs that help him to better understand the headhunting tradition of the Ilongot people in the Philippines.
Main Reading:
Melissa Crouch, The Palimpsest Constitution: The Social Life of Constitutions in Myanmar (Introduction) 1-28.
Additional Reading:
Rosaldo, Renato. "Grief and a Headhunter's Rage." Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis, Beacon Press, 1989, pp. 1–21.
About the ALC/CILIS Reading Group
The Asian Law Reading Group and CILIS Reading Group were new initiatives in 2023.
The two Reading Groups will combine in 2025 to form the ALC/CILIS Reading Group, which aims to provide a platform for graduate researchers and scholars at Melbourne Law School (MLS) who work individually on, or are interested in, Asian jurisdictions. It aims to encourage conversations among participants, who will discuss scholarly articles or book sections together by exchanging views, questions and reflections.
ALC/CILIS 2025 Reading Group - Reading List
ALC 2024 Reading Group - Reading List