Comparative Law, Anti-essentialism and Intersectionality: Reflections from Southeast Asia in Search of an Elusive Balance

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores the paradox of diversity and similarity within legal “traditions”. More particularly, in looking especially at comparative law scholarship on Southeast Asia, it asks if there are any lessons that comparative law theory can learn about how to account for commonality and difference in large and diverse contexts from the perspectives of intersectionality and anti-essentialism that have been developed in feminist scholarship. The paper concludes that feminist scholarship does not resolve the paradox that comparative legal study makes evident but that it does make us better realise the importance of open-textured “narratives of affinity” and “contingent classification” in legal contexts.