Textbook Activism? Teaching Law As an in(con)Clusive Practice

Departing from bell hooks’ words that “[t]he classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy” (1994:12) and reflecting upon the question of whether law can be used to resist law (Fitzpatrick 2008), in this paper I will consider some of the methodological, pedagogical and ethical challenges encountered, so far, while – together with my co-author – writing a textbook on migration and welfare law for social work students. By extension, the paper invites discussion of strategies that may contribute to de-colonising the teaching of law (Adébísí 2023).

The task for our textbook is to gently expand the potential for using law to challenge social injustices in the context of migration control. Yet, given law’s instrumental role in aiding racialised injustices and systems of oppression, including its intimate connection to colonial legacies, also in a Swedish context (Thomasson 2022; Ripenberg 2019), what might a textbook on law even look like in order not to merely “reflect biases and reinforce systems of domination”, but instead contribute to “making [our] teaching practices a site of resistance”? (bell hooks 1994:21).

In this paper, we will suggest that the teaching of law must break its ”hermetic seal” (Adébísí 2023:5) by placing peripheral, lived experiences of law at the centre of legal teaching, revealing law’s exclusionary, violent effects, while constantly trying to uncover the small, under-explored and unsettled spaces inside law that can aid more inclusive practices of social work.

This paper will suggest that de-colonising law starts in the classroom: Teaching of law as an in(con)clusive practice involves exposing the violence of law whilst exploring its speculative spaces – its discretionary grey zones and legal uncertainties – inviting students and teachers alike...”to live now, to teach now, to research now... as if the future we wish for already exists’ (Adébísí 2023:127).