Law and Citizenship in Latin America

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course will examine the history of law and citizenship in Latin America from the 19th to the 21st centuries. After a brief introduction to the so-called "Civil Law Tradition" that structures law across much of the world, we will explore the following themes: the development of Latin American constitutions, laws, and legal systems; the ways the operation of these systems has shaped citizenship and exclusion; the relationship between legal and other inequalities; the intersection of law and informality; and how legal history can shed light on broader questions of race, liberalism, family, gender, migration, urbanity, violence, policing, state terror, and the environment.