Law and Society

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Founding editor: W. Wesley Pue

The Law and Society Series explores law as a socially embedded phenomenon. It is premised on the understanding that the conventional division of law from society creates false dichotomies in thinking, scholarship, educational practice, and social life. Books in the series treat law and society as mutually constitutive and seek to bridge scholarship emerging from interdisciplinary engagement of law with disciplines such as politics, social theory, history, political economy, and gender studies.

Showing 1-20 of 126 items.

Heenan Blaikie

The Making and Unmaking of a Great Canadian Law Firm

UBC Press

What really happened at Heenan Blakie? This is the ultimate account of what went on behind the scenes of the largest law firm dissolution in Canadian history.

  • Copyright year: 2024
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Canada’s Surprising Constitution

Unexpected Interpretations of the Constitution Act, 1982

UBC Press

Canada’s Surprising Constitution asks why the Constitution Act, 1982, keeps generating unexpected interpretations and outcomes.

  • Copyright year: 2024
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Constraining the Court

Judicial Power and Policy Implementation in the Charter Era

UBC Press

Constraining the Court considers what happens when a statute involving a significant public policy issue is declared unconstitutional – and government disagrees.

  • Copyright year: 2024
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Suing for Silence

Sexual Violence and Defamation Law

UBC Press

Suing for Silence exposes the phenomenon of lawsuits whose purpose is to silence those who disclose sexual violence, revealing the gendered underpinnings of Canadian defamation law and its chilling effect on public discourse including formal reports of sexual violence.

  • Copyright year: 2024
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Refugees Are (Not) Welcome Here

The Paradox of Protection in Canada

UBC Press

Refugees Are (Not) Welcome Here details the paradox of the simultaneous expansion and restriction of access to refugee rights in Canada.

  • Copyright year: 2023
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The Notorious Georges

Crime and Community in British Columbia's Northern Interior, 1905–25

UBC Press

The Notorious Georges is an engaging exploration of the alchemy of community identity and reputation in Prince George, BC, once branded Canada’s most-dangerous city.

  • Copyright year: 2023
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Family Law in Action

Divorce and Inequality in Quebec and France

UBC Press

Family Law in Action examines the inequalities produced by divorce and separation in France and Quebec.

  • Copyright year: 2023
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Constitutional Crossroads

Reflections on Charter Rights, Reconciliation, and Change

UBC Press

Four decades after the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982, Constitutional Crossroads assesses its legacy, focusing on the themes of rights, reconciliation, and constitutional change.

  • Copyright year: 2022
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Power Played

A Critical Criminology of Sport

UBC Press

Power Played represents a distinctly critical criminology of sport, blowing the whistle on the harm, violence, and exploitation embedded in contemporary sport and sporting cultures.

  • Copyright year: 2022
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House Rules

Changing Families, Evolving Norms, and the Role of the Law

UBC Press

House Rules takes a hard look at the law and norms governing family life, compelling readers to rethink entrenched inequalities in familial relationships and proposing ways to approach legislative solutions.

  • Copyright year: 2022
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Banning Transgender Conversion Practices

A Legal and Policy Analysis

UBC Press

Banning Transgender Conversion Practices is the first book to offer a comprehensive analysis of how conversion practices targeting transgender people are regulated around the world.

  • Copyright year: 2022
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Religious Diversity in Canadian Public Schools

Rethinking the Role of Law

UBC Press

This comprehensive analysis of the legally complex relationship between religion and public schools will compel readers to reconsider the role of law in education.

  • Copyright year: 2022
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Reconciling Truths

Reimagining Public Inquiries in Canada

UBC Press

Reconciling Truths is a forthright examination of commissions of inquiry that demonstrates the need for astute leadership and an engaging process if they are to lead to meaningful change.

  • Copyright year: 2022
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The Laws and the Land

The Settler Colonial Invasion of Kahnawà:ke in Nineteenth-Century Canada

UBC Press

The Laws and the Land, an original and impassioned account of the history of the relationship between Canada and Kahnawà:ke, reveals the clash of settler and Indigenous legal traditions and the imposition of settler colonial law on Indigenous peoples and land.

  • Copyright year: 2021
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Women, Film, and Law

Cinematic Representations of Female Incarceration

UBC Press

Women, Film, and Law questions the criminalization of women through an engaging exploration of the women-in-prison film genre.

  • Copyright year: 2021
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A Better Justice?

Community Programs for Criminalized Women

UBC Press

Do community programs offer an effective alternative to imprisonment for women within the criminal justice system? A Better Justice? sets out the case.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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The Justice Crisis

The Cost and Value of Accessing Law

UBC Press

Based on innovative recent empirical research, The Justice Crisis assesses what is and isn’t working in efforts to improve access to civil and family justice in Canada.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Inalienable Properties

The Political Economy of Indigenous Land Reform

UBC Press

Inalienable Properties explores the contrasting approaches taken by local leaders to property rights and development in four Indigenous communities.

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Faith or Fraud

Fortune-Telling, Spirituality, and the Law

UBC Press

Faith or Fraud: Fortune-Telling, Individual Spirituality, and the Law answers an emerging controversy: Should the law’s understanding of religion include the “spiritual but not religious”?

  • Copyright year: 2020
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Trustees at Work

Financial Pressures, Emotional Labour, and Canadian Bankruptcy Law

UBC Press

Trustees at Work explores what is means to be considered a deserving debtor in under contemporary Canadian personal bankruptcy law.

  • Copyright year: 2019
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