Chair, Department of Global and International Studies
Professor of Global Studies and affiliated faculty in Law; Anthropology; and Criminology, Law & Society
Social Science Tower 569
Office Tel: (949) 824-1072
edarian@uci.edu
Key Research Areas
legal pluralism, crisis of democracy, authoritarianism, global and international law, human rights, race and ethnicity, (post)colonialism, legal and social theory, ethnographic methods, anthropology of law
Education
PhD Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1995
MA Sociocultural Anthropology, Harvard University, 1991
LLB Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia, 1988
BA (Hons) Department of History, University of Melbourne, Australia, 1988
Professional Bio
I worked as a corporate lawyer in Australia before coming to the United States to pursue a PhD in sociocultural anthropology. Trained as a lawyer, historian and anthropologist, I think of myself as a critical interdisciplinary scholar interested in issues of postcolonialism, human rights, legal pluralism, and sociolegal theory. My current work focuses on authoritarianism and crises of democracy. My research has been supported by five grants from the National Science Foundation, as well as grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, American Philosophical Society, and the UC Center for New Racial Studies.
I have published widely including thirteen books, edited volumes and special issues. My first book Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe (1999) was the co-winner of the Law & Society Association Herbert Jacob Book Prize. My book Laws and Societies in Global Contexts (2013) won the International Book Award in Law and the Kevin Boyle Book Award. My coauthored book with Philip McCarty, The Global Turn: Theories, Research Designs, and Methods for Global Studies (2017), is widely considered a foundational text in the field of global studies. My most recent book is titled Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis (2022, Stanford UP). It explores the convergence between a global political lean to the extreme right and human-driven climate change. It won the Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award and Silver Medal in Environment, Independent Publishers Award.
My current research engages the global attack on universities and colleges in the global north and global south. Book bans, political oversight of faculty governance, and censorship of curriculum are fast becoming the norm as universities lose their institutional autonomy to the far right. I have published a few articles on this subject, and the related book project is titled Policing the Mind: Higher Education and Academic Freedom Under Attack (to be published by Johns Hopkins University in its Critical University Book Series).
Jon Goldberg-Hiller and I coedit an innovative interdisciplinary book series “Global and Insurgent Legalities” with Duke University Press. I am on six editorial boards including the Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Social & Legal Studies, New Global Studies, Beijing Law Review, and I am a former Associate Editor of American Ethnologist and the Law & Society Review. I am very active in the Law & Society Association and have been a Trustee Board Member on three occasions, and twice elected class representative and member of the LSA Executive Committee. In 2021, I was elected to be Secretary of the Law & Society Association.
I am a committed teacher and student mentor, and regularly receive the School’s Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award for my course evaluations. I am chair and member on many graduate student committees, and thoroughly enjoy helping students explore their interests and develop their research and career trajectories.
Select Publications
Books (5 single-authored, 1 co-authored)
- 2022. Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis. Stanford University Press. Winner of Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award (2022); Silver Medal Winner in Environment/Ecology, Independent Publishers Book Award (2023)
- 2017. The Global Turn: Theories, Research Designs, and Methods for Global Studies. University of California Press. (Co-authored with Philip McCarty)
- 2013. Laws and Societies in Global Contexts: Contemporary Approaches. Cambridge University Press. Winner of the Kevin Boyle Book Award
- 2010. Religion, Race, Rights: Landmarks in the History of Modern Anglo-American Law. Oxford: Hart.
- 2004. New Capitalists: Law, Politics and Identity Surrounding Casino Gaming on Native American Land. Wadsworth. (Case studies in Contemporary Social Issues).
- 1999. Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe. University of California Press. Winner of the Herbert Jacob Book Prize, Law & Society Association
Edited Volumes / Special Issues (6 co-edited and 1 solo edited)
- 2021. Routledge Handbook of Law and Society. Edited by Mariana Valverde, Kamari Clarke, Eve Darian-Smith and Prabha Kotiswaran. Routledge.
- 2011. “Law and the Problematics of Indigenous Authenticities”. Symposium in Law & Social Inquiry. Vol. 36(1)115-234. Co-edited with Nick Buchanan.
- 2009. “Regulation and Human Rights in Socio-Legal Scholarship”. Special journal issue of Law & Policy. Vol. 31(3).
- 2007. Ethnography and Law. The International Library of Essays in Law and Society. Ashgate.
- 2001. “Putting Law in its Place in Native North America”. Special symposium in Political and Legal Anthropology Review. 24(2). Co-edited with Susan Gooding.
- 1999. Laws of the Postcolonial. University of Michigan Press. Co-edited with Peter Fitzpatrick.
- 1995. “Law and Postcolonialism”. Special issue of Law and Critique 6(1). Co-edited with Peter Fitzpatrick.
Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Human Rights / Legal Pluralism / Postcolonialism
- 2022. “Legal Pluralism in Postcolonial, Postnational, and Postdemocratic Times”. The Oxford Handbook of Law & Anthropology. Edited by Marie-Claire Foblets, Mark Goodale, Maria Sapignoli, and Olaf Zenker.
- 2021. “Dying for the Economy: disposable people and economies of death in the global north”. State Crime10(1) (Journal of the International State Crime Initiative, University of London).
- 2017. “Global Law Firms in Real World Contexts: practical limitations and ethical implications”. In James A.R. Nafsiger (ed) (2017) Comparative Law and Anthropology. Edward Elgar Publishing. Pp.381-394. (reprint)
- 2016. “Mismeasuring Humanity: Examining indicators through a critical global studies perspective”. New Global Studies. Vol.10(1):73-99.
- 2016. “Who Owns the World? Landscapes of sovereignty, property, dispossession.” Journal of the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. Vol.1(2).
- 2015. “The Constitution of Identity: New Modalities of Nationality, Citizenship, Belonging and Being”. In Austin Sarat and Patricia Ewick (eds) The Handbook of Law and Society. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Pp. 351-366.
- 2013. “Postcolonial Theories of Law”. In Max Travers and Reza Banakar (eds) An Introduction to Law and Social Theory. 2nd edition. Oxford: Hart. Pp. 247-264.
- 2000. “Structural Inequalities in the Global Legal System”. Review essay. Law & Society Review. Vol. 34(3).
- 1998. “Power in Paradise: The Political Implications of Santos’s Utopia”. Law & Social Inquiry 23(1).
- 1995. “Rabies Rides the Fast Train: Transnational Interactions in Post-Colonial Times.” Law and Critique 6(1).
Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Indigenous Issues / Racial Discrimination
- 2020. “Cultural Commodification in Global Contexts: Australian Indigeneity, Inequality, and Militarization in the Twenty-first Century”. In Jean Comaroff, John L. Comaroff and George Meiu (eds) Ethnicity, Commodification, In/Corporation. Indiana University Press.
- 2018. “Indigenous Litigiousness: The Oven Bird’s Song and the Miner’s Canary”. In Trautner, Mary Nell (ed) Insiders, Outsiders, Injuries, & Law: Revisiting ‘The Oven Bird’s Song. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- 2016. “Decolonizing Utopia”. Special Issue, Australian Journal of Human Rights. Vol.22(2).
- 2012. “Re-Reading W.E.B. Du Bois: the global dimensions of the US civil rights struggle”. Journal of Global History. Vol.7(3):485-505.
- 2011. “Introduction: Law and the Problematics of Indigenous Authenticities”. Co-authored with Nick Buchanan. Law & Social Inquiry. Vol. 36(1):115-124.
- 2010. “Environmental Law and Native American Law”. Annual Review of Law and Social Science. Vol. 6. 359-386.
Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Critical Global Studies
- 2023. “Academic Navel Gazing: Debating Globalization while the Planet Burns”. In Globalization: Past, Present, and Future. Edited by M. B Steger, R. Benedikter, H. Pechlaner, and I. Kofler. Oakland: University of California Press. Ch. 14.
- 2019. “Decolonizing Global Studies”. The Oxford Handbook of Global Studies, edited by Mark Juergensmeyer, Saskia Sassen, Manfred Steger. Chapter 16, Pp.251-276.
- 2019. “Designing Global Research”, co-authored chapter In The Many Facets of Global Studies. Perspectives from the Erasmus Mundus Global Studies Programme, edited by Konstanze Loeke and Matthias Middell. Leipzig University Press. (Co-authored with Philip McCarty)
- 2017. “Thinking Globally: Reassessing the fields of law, politics and economics in the US academy” New Global Studies. Vol.11(3):243-263.
- 2017. “Global Studies and Transdisciplinary Scholarship”. global-e. May 9, Volume10. Issue 31. (Co-authored with Philip McCarty)
- 2016. “Beyond Interdisciplinarity: Developing a Global Transdisciplinary Framework” Transcience: a Journal of Global Studies. Vol. 7, Issue 2. (Co-authored with Philip McCarty)
- 2015. “Global Studies – Handmaiden to Neoliberalism?” Globalizations Vol. 12(2)
Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Anti-democracy / Anti-environmentalism
- 2023. “Entangled Futures: Big Oil, Political Will, and the Global Environmental Movement”. Special journal issue “Earth Crisis and the Global Environmental Movement”. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology. Vol 21(3)
- 2022. “Deadly Global Alliance: Antidemocracy and Anti-environmentalism”. Third World Quarterly. Published online 2 Dec. 2022.
Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Critical Education Issues
- 2023. “United States Academic Freedom in Regional and Global Contexts”. Revista Internacional de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales (The International Journal of Law and Social Sciences). University of Monterrey, Mexico. No.33:129-147.
- 2021. “Transnational Legal Education”. In Peer Zumbansen (ed) Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law. Oxford University Press.
- 2020. “Internationalizing Education in an Era of Global Authoritarianism”. global-e. online published April 21, 2020. 13(24).
- 2019. “Globalizing Education in Times of Hyper-Nationalism, Rising Authoritarianism, and Shrinking Worldviews“. New Global Studies. Vol. 14(1):47–68.
- 2016. “The Crisis in Legal Education: Embracing Ethnographic Approaches to Law”. Transnational Legal Theory Vol.7(2):1-26.