The Land is the Source of the Law: A Dialogic Encounter with Indigenous Jurisprudence [Paperback]

Part 1 The Journey Begins; Chapter 1 My camp; Chapter 2 The camp of the talngai-gawarima; Part 2 Camps of the Senior Law Men; Chapter 3 Feeling the Djang: The camp of Senior Law Man Neidjie; Chapter 4 The spider or the web? The camp of Senior Law Man Mowaljarlai; Chapter 5 Health and land: The camp of Senior Law Man Wandjuk Marika; Part 3 Travelling the Land; Chapter 6 The journeys: From camps of old men to camps of young women; Chapter 7 The camp of 'caring for country': The world of Plains of Promise; Chapter 8 The camp from Turtle Island; Chapter 9 The camp from the sparkling waters of the Pacific; Part 4 Completing the Circle; Chapter 10 The end of the journey: A camp of contemporary concerns;

The Land is the Source of Law brings an inter-jurisdictional dimension to the field of indigenous jurisprudence: comparing Indigenous legal regimes in New Zealand, the USA and Australia, it offers a dialogical encounter with an Indigenous jurisprudence in which individuals are characterised by their rights and responsibilities into the Land.

Though a relatively new field, indigenous jurisprudence is the product of the oldest continuous legal system in the world. Utilising a range of texts  films, novels, poetry, as well as law stories CF Black blends legality and narrative in order to redefine jurisprudentia in indigenous terms. This re-definition gives shape to the jurisprudential framework of the book: a shape that is not just abstract, but physical and metaphysical; a shape that is circular and concentric at the same time. The outer circle is the cosmology, so that the human never forgets that they are inside a universe  a universe that has a law. This law is found in the second circle which, whilst resembling the ancient Greek law of physis is a law based on relationship. This is a relationship that orders the placing of the individual in the innermost circle, and which structures their rights and responsibilitieslcv