NUMBER 47 / 2002

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Franz von BENDA-BECKMANN is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Legal Pluralism and Professor and head of the project group ‘legal pluralism’ at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology at Halle, Germany. He was formerly Professor of Agrarian Law at Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands.

Jokin Alberdi BIDAGUREN is Doctor of Political Science and researcher at HEGOA, the Institute for Studies in Development and International Co-operation of the University of the Basque Country. He wrote his doctoral thesis on popular justice in South Africa, under a Basque Government training programme for researchers.

Samuel C. DAMREN received his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1972 and his J.D. from Wayne State University in 1975.  He is the author of a wide range of articles focused on the intersection of legal theory with concepts in philosophy and the social sciences.  Among these topics have been: Wittgenstein’s sense of criterion and private language in ‘A Meeting of the Minds - the Greater Illusion’, Law and Philosophy 15: 271-291 (1996); Aristotle’s syllogistic in ‘The Utilization of Syllogisms in Contemporary Legal Analysis - Law, Logic and the Boolean Universe’, Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University Law Review 1998: 63-107 (1998); Nietzche’s critique of traditionalism and Llewellyn’s and Hoebel’s description of native law in ‘Stare Decisis: The Maker of Customs’, New England Law Review 35: 1-22 (2000); and concepts of tolerance formulated during the Enlightenment in ‘Searching for a Calculus of Diversity - Teaching Tolerance’, New England Law Review 37: 1-24 (2002).  He is an attorney with the commercial law firm Dykema Gossett in Michigan.

Daniel NINA is a lawyer and lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Eugenio María de Hostos University, Puerto Rico. He has written several books and articles on the subject of popular justice, was co-author with Pamela Jane Sckwikkard of ‘The “Soft Vengeance” of the people’ (1996) Journal of Legal Pluralism 36: 69-87 (where a fuller biography appears), and more recently co-edited with Wilfried Schärf  The Other Law, Juta Press (2001).

Tom G. SVENSSON is Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo and was head of the steering committee of the research project on Sámi customs and legal perceptions set up by the Sámi parliament and the Norwegian government to supplement the work of the Sámi Rights Commission.  Among his major publications are: Ethnicity and Mobilization in Sámi Politics, Stockholm (1976); and The Sámi and Their Land, The Sámi vs .the Swedish Court: A Study of the Legal Struggle for Improved Land Rights: the Taxed Mountains Case, Oslo (1997).