Kinship, Law and Politics An Anatomy of Belonging

Why are we so concerned with belonging? In what ways does our belonging constitute our identity? Is belonging a universal concept or a culturally dependent value? How does belonging situate and motivate us? Joseph E. David grapples with these questions through a genealogical analysis of ideas and concepts of belonging. His book transports readers to crucial historical moments in which perceptions of belonging have been formed, transformed, or dismantled. The cases presented here focus on the pivotal role played by belonging in kinship, law, and political order, stretching across cultural and religious contexts from eleventh-century Mediterranean religious legal debates to twentieth-century statist liberalism in Western societies. With his thorough inquiry into diverse discourses of belonging, David pushes past the politics of belonging and forces us to acknowledge just how wide-ranging and fluid notions of belonging can be.

Part I. Kinship: 1. Corporal union as performance of belonging; 2. The making of kin belonging; Part II. Law: 3. Territorial belonging and the law; 4. Religious identity and law; Part III. Politics: 5. The familial-political analogy; 6. Liberal iconoclasm; 7. Beyond the analogy: liberal alternatives; Bibliography.

Joseph E. David is Professor of Law at Sapir Academic College, Israel and a Visiting Professor at the Program in Judaic Studies and Law School at the University of Yale. His research focuses on Jewish Studies, Law and Religion, Legal History and Comparative Jurisprudence, on which he has published extensively.