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The aesthetics of sovereignty
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Matthews, Daniel (2024) The aesthetics of sovereignty. In: Crawley, Karen and Giddens, Thomas and Peters, Timothy D., (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Cultural Legal Studies. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 9780367506957 (In Press)
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Abstract
Sovereignty is commonly understood to involve the co-ordination of two forms of power: auctoritas (the power of legitimate authority) and potestas (the power of effective rule). In this chapter I argue that this conception of sovereignty – understood, put crudely, as the interweaving of right and might – misses a third, and essentially important, aspect of the concept: its aesthetics. Whilst we commonly associate aesthetics with theories of the beautiful or with studies of artistic practices, aesthetics also refers to the nature of our sense perception, in the widest terms. In this way, aesthetics refers to material, socio-cultural dimensions that are seen, sensed, felt and experienced. The aesthetics of sovereignty, then, refers to the processes through which the concepts, institutions, beliefs and practices which constitute sovereignty render subjects sensitive or insensitive to material and social relations. Through the introduction of three related modalities of sovereignty’s aesthetics: representation, appearance, and imaginary, the chapter argues that an analytic priority should be afforded to the aesthetic dimensions of sovereignty because it is within the aesthetic, affective and imaginative registers that social and material relations are first visualised, represented, felt and given sense before they are expressed in legal and political terms.
Item Type: | Book Item | ||||
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Subjects: | K Law [Moys] > KA Jurisprudence | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law | ||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||
Place of Publication: | Abingdon, Oxon | ||||
ISBN: | 9780367506957 | ||||
Book Title: | Routledge Handbook of Cultural Legal Studies | ||||
Editor: | Crawley, Karen and Giddens, Thomas and Peters, Timothy D. | ||||
Official Date: | 19 April 2024 | ||||
Dates: |
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Number of Pages: | 480 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | In Press | ||||
Re-use Statement: | This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Routledge Handbook of Cultural Legal Studies on 19/04/2024, available online: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Cultural-Legal-Studies/Crawley-Giddens-Peters/p/book/9780367506957 | ||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 28 February 2024 | ||||
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