Legal Personhood Reading Group

Legal personhood is the bedrock of our justice systems – especially in our neo-liberal world. It is the law’s recognition of an individual or entity as a rights holder and legal agent. It is required for standing before courts, as well as for having decisions respected in law. It has traditionally been constructed around the ‘ideal’ of a white, able-bodied, cis-gender male atomistically navigating the socio-legal world in search of his ‘good life.’ However, scholars and activists are increasingly challenging this notion of legal personhood as ill-suited for modern realities (and, perhaps, as completely illusory). They have highlighted for example, that it doesn’t encompass the needs of women (who are often navigating the world in search of a good life for those under their care) or disabled people (who often do not have the supports necessary for navigating our world, which is often hostile to them). In addition, we are increasingly understanding that legal personhood can be applied to non-human entities, such as rivers and marine ecosystems – as some First Nations legal systems have long recognised. This reading group will explore some of these new lines of inquiry and begin asking questions such as: ‘What should a definition of legal personhood look like in our modern world’? ‘Can we overcome the exclusionary origins of the neo-liberal understanding of legal personhood’? ‘Who and/or what are important to recognise as legal persons’?

This reading group will be convened by Associate Professor Anna Arstein-Kerslake and Dr Erin O'Donnell.

Sessions will be held each month on a Wednesday from 1:00pm - 2:00pm in Room 831, Level 8, Melbourne Law School. Please see schedule below.

Register your attendance here!