Editors’ Introduction by John Conley and Justin Richland

This is our final issue as co-editors. We will be succeeded in the summer by Heath Cabot and Will Garriott, who have been observing the publication process and gradually assuming the day-to-day duties of analyzing reviews, making manuscript decisions, and drafting letters to authors. Chosen by the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology after a lengthy search process, Heath and Will are clearly the right people to guide PoLAR into the brave new world of electronic publishing and the pursuit of financial sustainability in an ever-more-challenging business environment. They have many promising ideas for extending PoLAR‘s reach and influence and making it an even more appealing venue for readers and authors, ideas that they will begin to discuss with you in their introduction to the next issue…. 

And now for a few words about the current issue. It features a Symposium organized by Melissa Demian, entitled “Internationalizing Custom and Localizing Law.” As Demian writes in her Introduction, it is “an endeavor to re-evaluate and update what may at first blush appear to be a thoroughly old-fashioned or folkloristic set of ideas for anthropologists: the concept of custom, particularly as it is deployed in relation to the concept of law.” As Demian explains in that Introduction, articles by Larry Nesper, Ilana Gershon and Amy Cohen, Demian, and Alice Wilson explore the complexities and ironies suggested by the Symposium title. [Read more]