Book Description

Comparative law and legal anthropology have traditionally restricted themselves to their own fields of inquiry. Mapping Marriage Law in Spanish Gitano Communities turns this tendency on its head and investigates what happens when the voices of each discipline are invited to speak to each other. Susan Drummond forges this hybrid form of comparative work through small- and large-scale studies of Gitano marriage law as it emerges in a Western European state, in a modern urban centre, and in particular communities and families. Drummond’s mapping of Gitano marriage law is grounded in ethnographic fieldwork in Andalucia. The study draws initially from the tradition of comparative law to focus on the emergence of Spanish state family law in a predominantly national and international context. Drummond then adopts the role of legal anthropologist to examine a particular legal culture that exists within, and also beyond, the Spanish state: that of the Gitanos and the transnational Roma. Ultimately, she brings the international, national, and cultural dimensions of law into play with one another and contemplates how all of these influences bear on the spirit of Andalusian Gitano marriage law. The result is an ethos of marriage law in a thoroughly mixed legal jurisdiction. Mapping Marriage Law in Spanish Gitano Communities will appeal to scholars and students in comparative law and legal anthropology, as well as readers interested in Roma studies in general, and the Gitanos in particular.