Eve Darian-Smith

University of California, Irvine is built on ancestral and unceded Acjachemen and Tongva territory, and I am grateful for working on these lands and learning from the elders, past, present and future.

Eve Darian-Smith   (she/her)

Darian-Smith, Eve CV 1 June 2025

Photo by Ellie McCarty 2024

Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Global and International Studies and affiliated faculty in the Law School; Dept of Anthropology; and Dept of Criminology, Law & Society

University of California, Irvine

edarian@uci.edu

Key Research Areas

crisis of democracy, authoritarianism, critical university studies, critical global studies, global and international law, human rights, race and ethnicity, postcolonial/decolonial theory, 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 am a Distinguished Professor and the founding chair of the Department of Global and International Studies at UC Irvine. I came to UC Irvine in 2017 and we quickly established a cutting-edge interdisciplinary department and doctoral program in critical global studies. In fall 2024 we will have a total of 17 faculty and welcome our fifth cohort of doctoral students. Prior to UC Irvine I was a professor at UC Santa Barbara where I was chair of the Global Studies Department and prior to that chair of the Law & Society Program.

I worked as a commercial 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 postcolonial and decolonial theory, 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 am an award-winning scholar and teacher, and have published widely including seven authored books (three winning prizes) and seven edited volumes and special issues. My first book Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe (1999) was the winner of the Law & Society Association’s prestigious 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.

In March 2025 I was very honored to receive the J. Ann Tickner Award from the International Studies Association for “pursuing high-quality, pioneering scholarship that pushes the boundaries of the discipline with a deep commitment to service, especially teaching and mentoring.”

Opening Invited Keynote: Scholars at Risk USA General Assembly hosted by Carnegie Mellon University with University of Pittsburgh, October 17, 2024, at the Cohon University Center.

Current Research

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 far right and human-driven climate change. I argue that the United States under the first Trump administration epitomizes these intersecting political trends with the rolling back of 50 years of environmental protections and the withdrawing of the US from the Paris Agreement in 2017. Trump’s rejection of international pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has become the norm among almost all global north countries, and a model for other far-right governments around the world. The book won the Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award and the Silver Medal in Environment, Independent Publishers Award.

In addition to my ongoing work on the interplay between authoritarian politics and anti-environmentalism, I have developed a new body of related research examining the far-right’s attack on academic freedom. This research reflects my long-standing interest in higher education and my growing alarm about the deepening political attack on universities 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 extremists. I have published numerous articles on this subject and my new book is titled Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters (2025, Johns Hopkins UP, Critical University Book Series). This research has law and policy implications, and I am very excited to be an invited Fellow at the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (AAUP). The Center brings together higher education scholars and policy experts to develop a comprehensive understanding of the scope and nature of political interference in higher education and develop means of countering this assault.

Jon Goldberg-Hiller and I coedit an innovative interdisciplinary book series Global and Insurgent Legalities (Duke UP). I am on six editorial boards including Social & Legal Studies, Studies in Law, Politics and Society, 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 for a three-year term.

I am a committed teacher and student mentor and regularly receive the School’s Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award for my high 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 (6 single-authored, 1 co-authored)

Cover image of Policing Higher Education

  • 2025. Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • 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 (2016); Winner of the International Book  Award (Law) (2015)
  • 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 (2000)

Edited Volumes / Journal 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: Higher Education Studies / Critical University Studies

Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Antidemocracy / Anti-environmentalism

Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Human Rights / Legal Pluralism / Postcolonialism

Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Indigenous and Racial Discrimination / Legal Engagement

Selected Peer-reviewed articles: Critical Global Studies