Please click here for the program and video clips from the November 2019 conference held in honor of Sally Engle Merry at NYU Law, where she was Faculty Co-Director for the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.
Books and Journal Special Issues
1981 Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
1990 Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness Among Working-Class Americans. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
2007 Chinese language edition, Peking University Press.
1993 The Possibility of Popular Justice: A Case Study of American Community Mediation. Co-edited with Neal Milner. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan Press.
2000 Colonizing Hawai'i: The Cultural Power of Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Awarded the 2002 James Willard Hurst Prize in Legal History of the Law and Society Association.
2004 Law and Empire in the Pacific: Hawai'i and Fiji. Co-edited with Donald Brenneis. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, NM
2006 Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2010. Winner of the J.I. Staley Prize of the School for Advanced Research.
2008 Oxford University Press of India edition.
2010 Spanish language edition, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Columbia.
2007 Excerpted in Philip Alston, Ryan Goodman and Henry Steiner. International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals. Oxford University Press.
2008. Chapter 5 reprinted in Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader. Mark Goodale, Ed. Wiley-Blackwell.
2007 The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local. Co-edited with Mark Goodale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2009 Gender Violence: A Cultural Introduction. London: Blackwell.
2009 Vernacularization in Action: Using Global Women's Human Rights Locally. Special Issue of Global Networks 9 (4). Co- edited with Peggy Levitt.
2010 Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas. Setha Low, co-Guest Editor. Current Anthropology, Wenner-Gren Symposium Series, Vol. 51, Supplement 2, October., pp. 201-330.
2012 Governance by Indicators: Global Power through Classification and Ranking. Kevin Davis, Angelina Fisher, Benedict Kingsbury, and Sally Engle Merry, eds. Oxford University Press.
2018 “Introduction: Global Governance by Indicators” reprinted as Chapter 13 in Global Governance, edited by Axel Marx, Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, Catholic University of Leuven and Jan Wouters, Institute for International Law, Catholic University of Leuven. International Law Series, Edward Elgar Publishing.
2015 The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Governance, Corruption, and Rule of Law. Edited by Sally Engle Merry, Kevin Davis, and Benedict Kingsbury. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
2015 A World of Indicators: The making of governmental knowledge through quantification, edited by Richard Rottenburg, Sally Engle Merry, Sung-Joon Park and Johanna Mugler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2016 The Seductions of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
2016 The New Legal Realism, Vol II: Studying Law Globally. Co-edited with Heinz Klug. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
2018 Human Rights Transformations in Practice. Co-edited with Tine Destrooper. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
Articles
1979 "Going to Court: Strategies of Dispute Management in an American Urban Neighborhood." Law and Society Review 13:4 891‑925.
1995. Reprinted in The Law and Society Reader, ed. by Richard L. Abel. New York: New York University Press.
1996. Abridged and reprinted in Law as Culture, Federation Press, Australia.
1980 "Racial Integration in an Urban Neighborhood: The Social Organization of Strangers." Human Organization 39: 59‑69.
1980 "Manipulating Anonymity: Streetwalkers' Strategies for Safety in the City." Ethnos 45: 157‑176.
1981 "Defensible Space Undefended: Social Factors in Crime Control through Environmental Design." Urban Affairs Quarterly 16: 397‑422.
1982 "The Social Organization of Mediation in Non‑Industrial Societies: Implications for Informal Community Justice in America." In The Politics of Informal Justice Vol. II, Comparative Studies Richard L. Abel (ed.) New York: Academic Press.
1987. Translated and reprinted as "De sociale organisatie van bemiddeling," in Rechtssociologie en Rechtsantropologie, Vakgroep Rechtsfilosofie en Rechtssociologie, Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid, Rijksuniversiteit Gronigen. Nijmegen: Ars Aequi Libri, 1987. 2nd ed., 1991, 3rd ed. 1995.
1997. Reprinted in Before the Law, 4th through 6th ed. Bonsignore, Katsh, d'Errico, Pipkin, Arons, and Rifkin (Eds.) Houghton-Mifflin.
1982 "The Articulation of Legal Spheres." In African Women and the Law: Historical Perspectives. M. Wright and M. Hay (eds.) Papers on Africa, Vol. VI, Boston University African Studies Center.
1982 "Defining `Success' in the Neighborhood Justice Movement." Neighborhood Justice: Assessment of an Emerging Idea. Pp. 172‑193 in Malcom Feeley and Roman Tomasic (eds.) New York: Longman.
1982 "The Future of Urban Danger." In Cities and the 21st Century. Gary Gappert and Richard V. Knight (eds.) 23rd Urban Affairs Annual Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
1984 "Rethinking Gossip and Scandal." In Toward a General Theory of Social Control. Vol. II. Donald Black (ed.) New York: Academic Press.
1996. Reprinted in Reputation: Studies in the Voluntary Enforcement of Good Behavior. Daniel Klein, ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan Press.
1984 "Anthropology and the Study of Alternative Dispute Resolution." Journal of Legal Education 34: 277‑284. Journal issue received Second Prize from the Center for Public Resources, 1985.
1984 "What do Plaintiffs Want?: Reexamining the Concept of Dispute." (Susan Silbey, co-author) Justice System Journal 9: 151‑179. Special Issue on Alternative Dispute Resolution.
1987. Reprinted in Dispute Resolution and Lawyers. James Westbrook and Leonard Riskin (eds.). West Publishing Co.
1985 "Concepts of Law and Justice among Working Class Americans: Ideology as Culture." Legal Studies Forum 11: 59‑71.
1986 "Mediator Settlement Strategies." Susan S. Silbey, co-author. Law and Policy. 8: 7 ‑ 32.
1989. Reprinted in Processes of Dispute Resolution: The Role of Lawyers. Alan Scott Rau, Edward Sherman, John Murray, (eds.) Westbury, NY: Foundation Press.
2000. Reprinted in Mediation: Theory, Policy and Practice. Carrie Menkel-Meadow, (ed). International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory, 2nd Series. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, UK.
2001. Reprinted in Materials on Mediation Theory and Practice. James Alfini, Sharon P. Press, Jean R. Sterlight, and Joseph B. Stulberg. Matthew Bender and Co., Inc., New York, NY.
2005 pp. 267-295 in Perspektiven Interkultureller Mediation, Dominic Busch/Hartmut Schroeder (Hrsg.). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang: Europaischer Verlag der Wissenschaften.
1986 "Everyday Understandings of the Law in Working‑class America." American Ethnologist 13: 253 ‑ 270.
1994. Reprinted in Law and Society, Roger Cotterrell (ed.), Volume in The International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory, Tom D. Campbell (ed.). Dartmouth Publishing Company. Aldershot, England.
1987 "Crowding, Conflict, and Neighborhood Regulation" in Neighborhood and Community Environments. Vol. 9 in Human Behavior and Environment, Advances in Theory and Research. Irwin Altman and Abraham Wandersman (eds.). New York: Plenum Press.
1987 "Disputing without Culture: Review Essay of Dispute Resolution." Harvard Law Review 100: 2057 - 2073.
1996. Reprinted in Alternative Dispute Resolution: Cases, Materials, and Problems, Wendy Trachte-Huber and Stephen Huber (eds.) Anderson Publishing Company.
1987 "The Culture and Practice of Mediation in Parent/Child Conflicts." Negotiation Journal 3:411-422.
1988 "The Mediation Process in Family and Neighborhood Disputes." Group Analysis Quarterly 21 (1): 47-56.
1988 "The Mediation Process: Myth and Practice." Mediation and Criminal Justice: Victims, Offenders, and Community. Martin Wright and Burt Galaway (eds.) London: Sage.
1988 "Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers." Urban Life: Readings in Urban Anthropology. First Edition. George Gmelch and Walter Zenner (eds.) Waveland Press.
All subsequent editions, including Sixth Edition, George Gmelch and Petra Kuppinger (eds) pp. 109-122, 2017.
1988 "From the Editors." with several co-authors. Special Issue of the Law and Society Review on Law and Ideology 22:4.
1988 "Legal Pluralism." Law and Society Review 22: 869-896.
1991 Reprinted in The International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory, edited by Tom D. Campbell. Hampshire, England: Dartmouth Publishing Company.
1994 Reprinted in The International Library of Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Penology, edited by David Nelkin and Gerald Mars, in Social Control: Aspects of Non-State Justice, edited by Stuart Henry. Hampshire, England: Dartmouth Publishing Company.
2003 Translated into Chinese for Global Law Review by Zhang Guanzi.
2006 Reprinted in The Globalization of International Law, edited by Paul Schiff Berman. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Company. Reprinted 2016 by Routledge.
2006. Translated into Spanish and reprinted in Nuevo Pensamiento Jurídico, published by Siglo del Hombre and Los Andes School of Law, Columbia
1988 "Ideological Production: The Making of Community Mediation." Law and Society Review 22: 709-37 (Christine Harrington, co-author).
1989 "Mediation in Cross-cultural Perspective." The Mediation of Disputes: Empirical Studies in the Resolution of Social Conflict. Ken Kressel and Dean Pruitt, Eds. San Francisco: Jossy-Bass.
1990 "Law as Fair, Law as Help: The Texture of Legitimacy in American Society" in New Directions in the Study of Law, Justice, and Social Control. School of Justice Studies, Arizona State University (eds.), Plenum Press.
1990 "The Discourses of Mediation and the Power of Naming." Yale Journal of Law and Humanities 2:1-35.
2007. Reprinted in Consciousness and Ideology. Patricia Ewick, Ed. International Library of Essays in Law and Society. Ashgate, UK.
1990 "The Culture of Judging," Review Essay on The Anthropology of Justice: Law as Culture in Islamic Society. Lawrence Rosen. Columbia Law Review 90: 2311-2328.
1990 "Varieties of Mediation Performance: Replicating Differences in Access to Justice." In Access to Civil Justice. Allan C. Hutchinson (ed.) Toronto: Carswell.
1991 "Law and Colonialism: Review Essay." Law and Society Review 25: 879-922.
1992 "Anthropology, Law and Transnational Processes." Annual Reviews in Anthropology 21: 357-379.
1992 "Popular Justice and the Ideology of Social Transformation." Social and Legal Studies 1: 161-76.
1992 "Culture, Power, and the Discourse of Law" New York Law School Law Review 37:209-229.
1993 "Sorting Out Popular Justice." in The Possibility of Popular Justice: A Case Study of American Community Mediation. Sally Merry and Neal Milner, editors. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan Press.
1993 "Mending Walls and Building Fences: Constructing the Private Neighborhood." Journal of Legal Pluralism 33: 71-91.
1994 "Grassroots Mediation: A Portrait of Albie Davis" in When Talk Works: Profiles of Master Mediators, Deborah Kolb, editor. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
1994 "Courts as Performances: Domestic Violence Hearings in a Hawai'i Family Court." pp. 35 - 59 in Contested States: Law, Hegemony, and Resistance. Susan Hirsch and Mindie Lazarus-Black, eds. New York: Routledge.
1994 "Narrating Domestic Violence: Producing the "Truth" of Violence in 19th- and 20th-Century Hawaiian Courts." Law and Social Inquiry 19:967-993.
1995 "Resistance and the Cultural Power of Law." Presidential Address, Law and Society Review 29: 11-27.
Translated into Polish and reprinted in Resistance and Domination: Theory and Practice. Nomos Publishing House, Poland.
1995 "Wife Battering and the Ambiguities of Rights." Pp. 271-307 in Identities, Politics, and Rights. Amherst Series in Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought. Austin Sarat and Thomas Kearns, eds. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan Press.
1995 "Gender Violence and Legally Engendered Selves." Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 2:49-73.
1997 "Legal Vernacularization and Transnational Culture: the Ka Ho'okolokolonui Kanaka Maoli, Hawai'i 1993." Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives. Richard Wilson, ed. Pp. 28-49. Pluto Press.
Reprinted in Polar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 19: 67-83, May 1996.
2016. Reprinted with commentary in Political and Legal Anthropology Review 2016 Virtual Edition. Joshua Clark and Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, Guest Editors. https://polarjournal.org/2016-virtual-edition-human-rights/
1998 “Global Human Rights and Local Social Movements in a Legally Plural World." Canadian Journal of Law and Society 12: 247-271.
2002. Reprinted in Law and Anthropology, Martha Mundy (ed)., International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory (2nd Series), Tom D. Campbell, General Editor. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing.
1998. "Law, Culture, and Cultural Appropriation." Yale Journal of Law and Humanities. 10:101-129.
1998. "The Criminalization of Everyday Life." Pp. 14 - 40 in Everyday Practices and Trouble Cases. Austin Sarat, ed. Northwestern Univ. Press.
1999. "Pluralizing Paradigms: From Gluckman to Foucault." Polar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 22: 108-115.
1999. "Criminalization and Gender: The Changing Governance of Sexuality and Gender Violence in Hawai'i." Pp. 75-103 in Governable Places: Readings on Governmentality and Crime Control. Russell Smandych, ed. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate/Dartmouth.
1999 "Il controllo della spazio ai confini dell'impero." (Spatial Governmentality on the Fringes of Empire) Sociologia del diritto 28 (3): 159-188. Published also as a volume of the series Sociologica del diritto, edited by Angeli, Milan
2000 "Globalizations Past: From Lahaina to London in the 1820s." pp. 81- 101. Globalizing Institutions: Case Studies in Regulation and Innovation. Edited by Jane Jenson and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate/Dartmouth.
2000 "Mennonite Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation: A Cultural Analysis." Pp. 203-217 in From the Ground Up. John Paul Lederach and Cynthia Sampson, Eds. New York: Oxford University Press.
2000 “Crossing Boundaries: Methodological Challenges for Ethnography in the Twenty-first Century.” Polar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 23 (2): 127-134.
2007 Reprinted in Ethnography and Law, Eve Darian-Smith, ed. International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Ashgate, UK.
2001 “Racialized Identities and the Law." Pp. 120-139 in Cultural Diversity in the United States: A Critical Reader. Edited by Ida Susser and Thomas C. Patterson. New York: Blackwell Publishers.
2001 “Changing rights, changing culture." Pp.31-56 in Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives. Jane Cowan, Marie-Benedicte Dembour, and Richard A. Wilson, eds. London: Cambridge University Press,
2001 “Women, Violence, and the Human Rights System." Pp.83-98 in Women, Gender, and Human Rights: A Global Perspective. Margery Agosin, ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press,.
2002 Reprinted as Las Mujeres, La Violencia y el Sistema de Derechos Humanos. Translated by Moises Silva. Revista de estudios de genero: La Ventana. Universidad de Guadalajara. II (15): 64-92.
2001 "Rights, Religion, and Community: Approaches to Violence Against Women in the Context of Globalization." Law and Society Review 35: 39-88.
2004. Reprinted in Law and Anthropology: A Reader. Sally Falk Moore, ed. Blackwell.
2006. Reprinted in Law and Religion. Gad Barzilai, ed. International Library of Essays in Law and Society. Ashgate.
2007. Reprinted in Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Rights, Laura Beth Nielsen, ed. International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Ashgate, UK.
2001 "Spatial Governmentality and the New Urban Social Order: Controlling Gender Violence through Law." American Anthropologist 103: 16-30.
2003. Reprinted in Criminological Perspectives: A Reader, 2nd Edition. Eugene McLaughlin, John Muncie, Gordon Hughes, eds. Sage Publications, UK.
Reprinted in Urban Sociology Reader. Christopher Mele and Jan Lin, eds.
2001 "Law, Anthropological Aspects." Pp. 8489-8492. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. N. J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (editors). Pergamon, Oxford.
2013. Revised essay, co-authored with Matthew Canfield. “Law, Anthropological Aspects." International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
2002. “Governmentality and Gender Violence in Hawai‘i in Historical Perspective.” Social and Legal Studies 11(1): 81-110.
2002. “Comparative Criminalization: Cultural Meanings of Adultery and Gender Violence in Hawai‘i in 1850 and 1990.” Pacific Studies 25 (1): 203-220.
2002. “Crime and Criminality: Historical Differences in Hawai‘i.” The Contemporary Pacific 14:2: 411-426.
2002 "Ethnography in the Archives." Pp. 128-142 in June Starr and Mark Goodale (eds.), Practicing Ethnography in Law: New Dialogues, Enduring Methods. New York: Palgrave/St. Martin's.
2002. Symposium, “Battered Women and Feminist Law Making: Author Meets Readers.” Elizabeth M. Schneider, Christine Harrington, Sally Engle Merry, Renee Rompkens, and Marianne Wesson, Journal of Law and Policy 10: 313.
2002. “Moving Beyond Ideology Critique to the Analysis of Practice: Comment on “Illusions and Delusions about Conflict Management – In Africa and Elsewhere” by Laura Nader and Elisabetta Grande.” Law and Social Inquiry 27: 609-612.
2003 “Kapi‘olani at the Brink: Dilemmas of Historical Ethnography in Nineteenth-Century Hawai‘i.” American Ethnologist 30:1: 44-61.
2003 “Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence.” Human Rights Quarterly 25:2: 343-381.
2004. Reprinted in The Social Organization of Law: An Introduction, edited by Austin Sarat. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Company. 2004.
2006. Reprinted in Women’s Rights: A Human Rights Quarterly Reader, pp. 393-431. Johns Hopkins University Press.
2013. Excerpt published online in Farsi in Zannegaar, online journal on Gender Studies, Vol. 11 on Women and Law, Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
2013. Reprinted in Gender Issues and Human Rights, Vol. III. Pp. 228-269. Diane Otto, ed. Edward Elgar Publishing, UK and Northhampton, MA. .
2003. “Christian Conversion and ‘Racial’ Labor Capacities: Constructing Racialized Identities in Hawai‘i.” Pp. 203-238 in Globalization Under Construction: Governmentality, Law, and Identity. Richard Warren Perry and Bill Maurer, eds. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
2003. “Hegemony and Culture in Historical Anthropology: A Review Essay on Jean and John L. Comaroff, From Revelation to Revolution, Vols. I. and II. American Historical Review. Volume 108, No. 2, April 2003: 460-70.
2003 “From Law and Colonialism to Law and Globalization: A Review Essay on Martin Chanock, Law, Custom, and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia.” Law and Social Inquiry 28:2: 269-290.
2003. “The Politics of Gender Violence: Law Reform in Local and Global Places.” (with Mindie Lazarus-Black). “Introduction” to a Symposium on Violence between Intimates, Globalization, and the State.” Law & Social Inquiry 28(4):931-939.
2003 “Constructing a Global Law - Violence Against Women and the Human Rights System” Law and Social Inquiry 28:4: 941-979.
2005 Reprinted in The Globalization of Justice, edited by Paul Schiff Berman. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Company.
2003. “Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture (And Anthropology Along the Way)” in Commentary, Anthropology News, Newsletter of the American Anthropological Association, 44 (2), Feb. 2003.
2005. Reprinted in Emily Schultz and Robert H. Lavenda. Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition. Sixth ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 30-31. Seventh edition, Anthropology: What does it mean to be human?, 2007. Eighth edition, 2014. Canadian Edition, 2016. Tenth edition, 2017.
2005. Reprinted in Luis Vivanco et. al., Talking About People 4/e.. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
2003 "Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture (And Anthropology Along the Way)” Polar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 26:1: 55-77.
2010. Reprinted in Cultural Anthropology, Kim Fortun and Mike Fortun, eds. SAGE Studies in Anthropology, SAGE Publications. Volume 4: Engagements.
2015. Reprinted as “Le norme per la protezione dei diritti umani e la demonizzazione della cultura (passando per l’antropologia,” pp. 53-77 in Diritti e culture. Un’antologia critica . Roberto Cammarata, Letizia Mancini, Persio Tincani (Eds.). G. Giappichelli Editore – Torino.
2004 "Introduction" co-authored with Donald Brenneis. Pp. 3 - 34 in Law and Empire in the Pacific co-edited with Donald Brenneis. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.
2004 "Law and Identity in an American Colony." Pp. 123 - 152 in Law and Empire in the Pacific co-edited with Donald Brenneis. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.
2004 “Colonial and Postcolonial Law.” Pp. 569-588 in The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society, Austin Sarat, ed. London: Blackwell Publishing.
2004. "Regulation and Relations." Pp. 63-78 in Law and Society. Beijing: Renmin University Press. Published in Chinese.
2004. Comment on Comments on Colonizing Hawai'i. Law and Society Review 38 (4): 861-866.
2005. "Human Rights and Global Legal Pluralism: Reciprocity and Disjuncture" in Mobile People, Mobile Law: Expanding Legal Relations in a Contracting World. Pp. 215-233 in Franz von Benda Beckman, Keebet von Benda Beckman, Anne Griffiths, eds. Ashgate.
2005 "The Female Inheritance Movement in Hong Kong: Theorizing the Local/Global Interface." Co-authored with Rachel Stern. Current Anthropology 46 (3): 387-409.
2007. Reprinted in International Law and Society, Laura Dickinson, ed. Ashgate International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Ashgate, UK.
2007. Reprinted in The Anthropology of Globalization, 2nd edition. Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, eds. Blackwell Publishing.
2005. “Anthropology and Activism: Researching Human Rights across Porous Boundaries.” Polar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 28 (2): 240-258.
Reprinted in Polar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 2012 Virtual Edition: Occupied Worlds. https://polarjournal.org/virtual-edition-occupied-worlds/
2006. “Commentary on Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism, by Noenoe Silva.” The Contemporary Pacific 18:1: 159-163.
2006. Review Essay: "Race, Inequality, and Colonialism in the New World Order."
Law & Society Review Vol.40 , No.1.: 235-247.
2006. “ Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle” American Anthropologist 108 (1): 38-51.
2006.Abridged version reprinted in The World Bank Legal Review: Law, Equity, and Development, Volume 2. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Amsterdam.
2012. Reprinted as chapter 10 in Dialogues on Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Springer Press, Rene Provost and Colleen Sheppard, eds. (Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice series)
2006 “Anthropology and International Law.” Annual Review of Anthropology 35: 99-116.
2006. “Human Rights and Transnational Culture: Regulating Gender Violence through Global Law.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal. 44 (1): 53-77.
2006. “New Legal Realism and the Ethnography of Transnational Law” Law and Social Inquiry 31 (4): 975-995.
2006. “Fluditiy of Human Rights in Practice”. Anthropology News, May 2006, Vol. 47, No5: 4-4.
2007. Report on Conference on Law and Governance, Max Planck in Halle. APLA Column, Anthropology News.
2007. “Global Regulation and Local Political Struggles: Early Marriage in Northern Nigeria” co-authored with Annie Bunting. Pp. 321-353 in Youth, Globalization, and the Law, edited by Sudhir Venkatesh and Ron Kassimir. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.
2007. “Conflict Resolution vs. Human Rights.” Commentary in Anthropology News 48 (7): 16.
2007 “Human Rights Law as a Path to International Justice: The Case of the Women’s Convention.” In Paths to International Justice :Social and Legal Perspectives. Marie-Benedict Dembour and Tobias Kelly, eds. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
2007 “Introduction to Part One, States of Violence,” (pp. pp. 41-49) and “Introduction to Part Three, Conditions of Vulnerability,” (pp. 195-204), in The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Global and the Local. Mark Goodale and Sally Engle Merry, eds., London and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
2007.“International Law and Sociolegal Scholarship: Toward a Spatial Global Legal Pluralism.” Special Issue of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 41: 149-168.. “Law and Society Reconsidered.” Austin Sarat (ed.). JAI Press, Elsevier Limited.
2015. Abridged version reprinted in Negotiating State and Non-State Law: The Challenges of Global and Local Legal Pluralism. Michael A. Helfand, ed. Cambridge Univ. Press.
2008. “Introduction” to Gender and Globalization in Asia and the Pacific.
With Kathy E. Ferguson and Monique Mironesc. University of Hawai‘i Press.
2008. “Derechos humanos, género y nuevos movimientos sociales: Debates contemporáneos en antropología juridical” Traducido del inglés por Héctor Ortiz Elizondo. RELAJU, Justicia y diversidad en tiempos de globalización, edited by Victoria Chenaut, Magdalena Gómez, Héctor Ortíz y María Teresa Sierra. Mexico City: CIESAS.
2008. “Commentary on Reviews of Human Rights and Gender Violence.” American Anthropologist (December) 110 (4) : 520-522..
2009. “Human Rights in the Imperial Heartland.” Pp. 49 - 65 In Rethinking America: The Imperial Homeland in the 21st Century. Edited by Jeff Maskovsky and Ida Susser. Paradigm Press.
2009. “Vernacularization on the ground: Local uses of global women’s rights in Peru, China, India and the United States.” Global Networks 9 (4): 441–461. co-authored with Peggy Levitt.
Featured in 10th Anniversary special issue of classic articles in Global Networks.
2009. “Beyond Compliance: Toward An Anthropological Understanding of International Justice,” pp. 28 – 42 in Mirrors of Justice: Law and Power in the Post-Cold War Era. Kamari Clarke and Mark Goodale, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press Series in Law and Society.
2009. “Relating to the Subjects of Human Rights: The Culture of Agency in Human Rights Discourse.” Pp. 385-407, Chapter 15 in Law and Anthropology: Current Legal Issues Vol. 12. Michael Freeman and David Napier, ed. Oxford Univ. Press.
2009. “Gender Violence” in The Encyclopedia of Human Rights. David P. Forsythe, editor in chief. Oxford University Press.
2010. “Governing through Indicators.” Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law, 2009. pp. 239-245. Washington, DC: American Society of International Law.
2010. “Law from Below: Women’s Human Rights and Social Movements in New York City.” Co-authored with Peggy Levitt, Mihaela Serban Rosen, and Diana H. Yoon. Law and Society Review 44 (1):101- 128.
2010. “Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas.” Co-authored with Setha Low. In Current Anthropology, special issue on Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas. Wenner Gren Symposium Supplement 2. co-edited with Setha Low. Vol. 51, Number S2: S203-226.
2010. “Colonial Law and its Uncertainties.” Special Issue of Law and History Review 28 (4): 1067-1071 (November). Comment, part of "Forum: Maneuvering the Personal Law System in Colonial India" with introduction by Elizabeth Kolsky and articles by Rohit De, Chandra Mallampalli, and Mitra Sharafi).
2010. “Empirical Legal Training in the US Academy, “ co-authored with Christine B. Harrington. The Oxford Handbook on Empirical Legal Research. Peter Cane and Herbert Kritzer, eds. Pp. 1044-1058. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
2011. “Making Women’s Human Rights in the Vernacular: Navigating the Culture/Rights Divide,” co-authored with Peggy Levitt. Pp. 81-100 in Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights, edited by Dorothy Hodgson. Series: Studies in Human Rights. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
2011. “Measuring the World: Indicators, Human Rights, and Global Governance” Corporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form. Damani Partridge, Marina Welker, Rebecca Hardin, eds. Wenner-Gren Symposium Series. Current Anthropology, Vol. 52, Supplementary Issue 3: S83-S95.
2018. Reprinted in The Palgrave Handbook of Indicators in Global Governance. Pp. 477-501. Debora Valentino Malito/ Gaby Umbach/ Nehal Bhuta (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan.
2011. “The Curious Resistance to seeing Domestic Violence as a Human Rights Violation in the USA” co-authored with Jessica Shimmin. Pp. 113- 131 in Human Rights in the United States: Beyond Exceptionalism. Kathryn Libal and Shereen Hertel, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
2011. “Gender Justice and CEDAW: The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.” In Excavating Gender Justice, the Predicament and the Promise, edited by Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf. Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 9(1–2) Hawwa 9.1/9.2. : 1-27.
2011. “Engaged Anthropology in the United States and its Relevance for World Anthropologies.” Co-authored with Setha Low. Pp. 93-110. in Global Anthropologies, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, ed. Beijing: Intellectual Property Publishing House. 2011. ISBN 978-7-5130-0870-9.
2011. “Voelkerrecht. “(International Law). Entry in Lexikon zur Globalisierung. (Encyclopedia of Globalization). Andre Gingrich, Eva Maria Knoll , and Fernand Kreff, eds. Pp. 995-1003. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Publishers. Published in German.
2011. “Derechos humanos, genero y nuevos movimientos sociales: Debates contemporaneos en anthropologia juridica.” (Human rights, gender, and new social movements: Contemporary debates in legal anthropology). Pp. 261-291 in "Justicia y diversidad en América Latina: Pueblos indígenas ante la globalización" (Justice and Diversity in Latin America. Indigenous Peoples and Globalization). Victoria Chenaut, Magdalena Gomez, Hector Ortiz, and Maria Teresa Sierra, eds. CIESAS – Mexico and FLASCO-Ecuador.
2011. “Sex Trafficking and Global Governance in the Context of Pacific Mobility.” Law, Text, Culture 15: 187-208, chapter 10.
2012. “Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance.” Co-authored with Kevin Davis and Benedict Kingsbury. Law and Society Review 46 (1): 71 – 104.
2012. “What is Legal Culture? An Anthropological Perspective.” Journal of Comparative Law 5(2): 40-58.
Reprinted in Using Legal Culture (JCL Studies in Comparative Law). David Nelken, editor. Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, Publishing. Pp. 52-76.
2012. “Legal Pluralism and Legal Culture: Mapping the Terrain.” Legal Pluralism and Development: Scholars and Practitioners in Dialogue. Brian Z. Tamanaha, Caroline Sage, and Michael Woolcock, eds. Pp. 66-83. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
2012. Anthropology and Law” in The Sage Handbook of Social Anthropology, Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth. Richard Fardon, Olivia Harris, Mark Nuttall, Trevor Marchand, Chris Shore, and Richard A. Wilson, eds. Volume 1, pp. 105-120. London: Sage Publications.
2012. “Human Rights Monitoring and the Question of Indicators.”pp. 140-152 in Human Rights at the Crossroads. Mark Goodale, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2013. “Doing vernacularization: The encounter between global and local ideas of women’s rights in Peru.” With Peggy Levitt, Rosa Alayza, and Mercedes Crisostomo Meza. Pp. 127 – 143 in Feminist Strategies in International Governance. Gulay Caglar, Elisabeth Prugl and Susanne Zwingel, eds. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
2013. “Disjunctures between global law and local justice.” In Gender and Equality Law. Edited by Julie Goldscheid. Library of Essays on Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law. Ashgate.
2013. “Legal Pluralism in Practice.” McGill Law Journal 59:1-9.
2013. “The Travels of Gender and Law.” Epilogue. Grounding Traveling Concepts: Dialogues with Sally Engle Merry on Gender and Justice. Hilary Charlesworth and Margaret Jolly, guest editors of special issue. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific. issue 33 (December 2013). URL: http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue33_contents.htm accessed 18 December 2013.
2014. “Technologies of Truth in the Anthropology of Conflict.” Co-authored with Susan Coutin. American Ethnologist 41(1): 1-16.
2014. Abridged version reprinted in Zeitschrift fur Menschenrechte (Journal of Human Rights), issue on Menschenrechte und Gewalt (Human Rights and Power): 8 (1): 28-48.
2014. “Global Legal Pluralism and the Temporality of Soft Law.” Special Issue on Temporalities of Law, Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. 46 (1): 108-122.
2014. “Measuring the World: Indicators, Human Rights, and Global Governance.” pp.141 -165 in Law in Transition: Human Rights, Development and Transitional Justice. Ruth Buchanan and Peer Zumbansen, eds. Oxford: Hart Publishing Ltd. (expanded version of 2011 article.)
2014. “Inequality and Rights: Commentary on “The Unbearable Lightness of Rights” by Michael McCann.” Law and Society Review 48 (2): 285-295.
2015. “Firming Up Soft Law: The Impact of Indicators on Transnational Human Rights Legal Orders.” Chapter 11, pp. 374-400 in Transnational Legal Orders. Edited by Terence C. Halliday and Greg C. Shaffer. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
2015. “Stateless Law: Before, Inside and Outside the Law of the State.” Prologue, Chapter 1, pp. 3-9 in Stateless Law: Evolving Boundaries of a Discipline. Helge Dedek & Shauna Van Praagh, eds, Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
2015. “Quantification and the Paradox of Measurement: Translating Child Rights in Tanzania.” Co-authored with Summer J Wood. Current Anthropology. Vol 56 (2): 205-229.
2015. “ The Turn to Critical Legal Pluralism: The Contributions of Roderick Macdonald.” Chapter 27, pp. 317-322 in The Unbounded Level of the Mind: Rod Macdonald’s Legal Imagination. Richard Janda, Rosalie Jukier, and Daniel Jutras, eds, McGill-Queen’s University Press.
2015. Commentary on “Audit Culture Revisited: Rankings, Ratings, and the Reassembling of Society.” Cris Shore and Susan Wright. Current Anthropology 56 (3): 435-6.
2016. “The Rule of Law and Authoritarian Rule: Legal Politics in Sudan.” Law and Social Inquiry 41 (2): 465-470.
2016. “Human Rights Monitoring, State Compliance, and the Problem of Information.” Pp. 32-52 in The New Legal Realism, Vol. II: Studying Law Globally. Edited by Heinz Klug and Sally Engle Merry. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
2016. “Cultural Dimensions of Power/Knowledge: The Challenges of Measuring Violence against Women.” Special Issue on Governing by Performance Indicators, Sociologie du travail 58: 370–380 Sociol. trav. (Paris) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soctra.2016.09.017
2016. Online Interview: http://newbooksnetwork.com/sally-engle-merry-the-seduction-of-quantification-measuring-human-rights-gender-violence-and-sex-trafficking-u-of-chicago-press-2016.
2017. “Expertise and Quantification in Global Institutions.” Pp. 152-172 in Palaces of Hope: The Anthropology of Global Institutions.” Ronald Niezen and Maria Sapignoli, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press.
2017. “The Social Life of Measurement.” LSI Forum: Commentary on Mila Versteeg and Tom Ginsburg. “ Measuring the Rule of Law: A Comparison of Indicators.” Law & Social Inquiry 42: Vol 2: 6-9.
2017. “What Is the Rule of Law? Perspectives from Myanmar” in Hague Journal on the Rule of Law. 9: 11. DOI:10.1007/s40803-016-0041-y
2017. “The Limits of Consent: Trafficking and the Problem of International Paternalism.” Co-author Vibhuti Ramachandran. Paternalism Beyond Borders. Michael N. Barnett, Ed. Pp. 224-255. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
2017. “Counting the Uncountable: Constructing Trafficking through Measurement.” Pp. 273-305 In Revisiting the Law and Governance of Trafficking, Forced Labour, and Modern Slavery. Prabha Kotiswaran, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
2017. “Inequality, Gender Violence, Human Rights.” Pp. 298-307 in The Daunting Enterprise of the Law: Essays in Honour of Harry Arthurs. Simon Archer, Daniel Drache, and Peer Zumbansen, Eds. Queens-McGill University Press.
2017. “The Potential of Ethnographic Methods for Human Rights Research. ” Chapter 7, pp. 141-158 in Research Methods in Human Rights: A Handbook. Bard A. Andreassen, Hans-Otto Sano, and Siobhan McInerney-Lankford, eds. Edward Elgar, Publishers.
2017. “The Vernacularization of Women’s Human Rights.” In Human Rights Futures, Chapter 9, pp. 213-237, Leslie Vinjamuri, Jack Snyder, and Stephen Hopgood, eds. Co-authored with Peggy Levitt. Cambridge Univ. Press.
2017. Foreword. Pp. ix-xii. Anthropology and Law: A Critical Introduction. By Mark Goodale. New York: New York University Press.
2018. “International Organizations and the Technologies of Governance.” Chapter 11 of Rethinking Society for the 21st Century: Report of the International Panel on Social Progress. Vol 2: pp. 457-491. Cambridge University Press. Co-Coordinating Lead Author with Hilary Charlesworth.
2018. “Does Law Matter to Anthropology?” Comment in Special Issue, Does Anthropology Matter to Law? JLA Forum, Journal of Legal Anthropology, Jeremy Kingsley and Kari Telle, eds. Vol 2 (2): 86-91.
2019. “The Sustainable Development Goals Confront the Infrastructure of Measurement.” Global Policy 10: Supplement 1: 146-148. Special Issue: Knowledge and Power in Setting and Measuring SDGs. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Desmond McNeill, guest editors.
2019. “Anthropology and the Perils of Quantification.” Response in Book Review Forum on The Seductions of Quantification: Human Rights, Sex Trafficking, and Gender Violence. American Anthropologist. 121 (1): 270-272. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/aman.13178
2019. “Controlling Numbers: How Quantification Shapes the World.” Pp. 145-163 in Life by Algorithms: How Roboprocesses are Remaking our World. Catherine Besteman and Hugh Gusterson, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Korean edition forthcoming.
2019. “Remaking Women’s Human Rights in the Vernacular: The Resonance Dilemma,” Co-author Peggy Levitt. Pp. 145 – 168 in Rethinking Gender Equality in Global Governance: The Delusion of Norm Diffusion. Lars Engberg-Pedersen, editor. Palgrave.
2019. “Gender and Sexuality.” Chapter 3 in Exotic No More, second edition. Jeremy MacClancy, ed. University of Chicago Press.
2020. “Conclusions: A Processual Approach to Transnational Legal Orders.” Pp. 369-380 in Transnational Legal Ordering of Criminal Justice. Gregory Shaffer and Ely Aaronson, eds. Cambridge University Press.
2020. “An Anthropological Perspective on Legal Pluralism” in Handbook on Global Legal Pluralism. Paul Berman, Ed. Oxford University Press.
Forthcoming:
“Law in Practice: The Problem of Compliance and the Turn to Quantification.” In Oxford Handbook on the Anthropology of Law. Marie-Clair Foblets, ed. Oxford University Press.
“The State of Human Rights Consciousness: Not Yet Endtimes.” The Struggle for Human Rights – Law, Politics, Practice / Essays in Honour of Philip Alston. Nehal Bhuta, Sarah Knuckey, Florian Hoffman, Meg Satterthwaite, and Frederic Megret, eds.
“Indicators: Sociolegal Dimensions of Quantification.” Routledge Handbook on Law and Society. Mariana Valverde and Eve Darian-Smith, eds. Routledge.
“Early Pacific Encounters and Masculinity: Sex, War, and Christianity in Hawai‘i.” Current Anthropology Special Issue on Masculinity. Matthew Gutmann, Augustine Fuentes, and Robin Nelson, eds.
Book Reviews, Comments, and Other Publications
1974 Review of Black Players: The Secret World of Black Pimps and Gentlemen of Leisure: A Year in the Life of a Pimp. In American Anthropologist 76: 122.
1977 "Cultural Distance and Ethnic Boundaries in an Inner‑City Neighborhood." ERIC Document Reproduction Service. Clearinghouse on Urban Education. New York: Teachers' College, Columbia University.
1981 "A City of Strangers: Living with the Fear of Urban Crime." New Boston Review July/August.
1982 Review of "If It Fits." John Marshall. Documentary Educational Anthropologist Vol 84.
1983 Review of "Mission Hill and the Miracle of Boston" and "Down the Project," American Anthropologist Vol. 85: 1013‑1014.
1983 Review of Mediation and Society: Conflict Management in Lebanon. by Cathie Witty. Journal of Legal Pluralism 21: 159‑162.
1984 Review of "Poletown Lives!" American Anthropologist Vol. 86: 1054‑1056.
1985 Review of Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West. Edited by John Bossy. Contemporary Sociology 14: 709‑710.
1985 Review of The Mediators, by Deborah Kolb. Qualitative Sociology 9: 412 - 415.
1988 Review of Law, Custom, and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia, by Martin Chanock. In the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Newsletter.
1989 Review of "No Applause, Just Throw Money" and "Peter, Donald, Willie, Pat" in American Anthropologist 91:527-529.
1990 Review of Between Kinship and the State: Social Security Law in Developing Countries. Franz von Benda-Beckman, Keebet von Benda-Beckman, E. Casino, F. Hirtz, G.R. Woodman, H.F. Zacher (eds.) Journal of Legal Pluralism 28: 173-181.
1990 Review of The Past is Another Country: Representation, Historical Consciousness, and Resistance in the Blue Ridge. American Historical Review. p. 1637.
1991. "Are Americans Litigious at Home?" National Forum 61:27-30.
1991. Review of The Political Economy of Law: A Third World Reader. Yash Ghai, Robin Luckman, and Francis Snyder (eds.) In the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Newsletter 14: 8-10.
1992. Review of Social Courts in Yugoslavia by Robert Hayden. American Anthropologist 94:723.
1995. Review of The Social Production of Indifference: Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracy. by Michael Herzfeld. Anthropological Quarterly 68: 194-5.
1995. Comment on "Bringing the Law Back In: Legal Rights and the Regulation of Indian-White Relations on Rosebud Reservation." Thomas Biolsi. Current Anthropology 36: 562.
1995. Review of Rouland, Legal Anthropology, Fitzpatrick, The Mythology of Modern Law, and Tamanaha, Understanding Law in Micronesia, in American Ethnologist 22: 1005-6.
1996. Review of Sasson, Theodore, Crime Talk: How Citizens Construct a Social Problem, in The Law and Politics Book Review Vol. 6, No. 5.
1996. "Sex, Opium, and Gambling: The Changing Business of the Hilo District Court, 1853 - 1903." Kaulike: Newsletter of the Friends of the Judiciary History Center of Hawai'i 11: 2-3.
1996. Reprinted in Ka Leo O H.A.L.A, Hawaii Association of Legal Assistants Newsletter, Honolulu, HI.
1996. "Anthropology and American Colonialism." North American Dialogue: Newsletter of the Society for the Anthropology of North America 1:7.
1996. "Law and Resistance in Colonial Situations," Anthropology Newsletter 37:7.
1998. Review of Roger Cotterrell, Law's Community: Legal Theory in Sociological Perspective. Social and Legal Studies 7: 584-6.
1998. "Law", "Conflict Resolution", "Urbanism," "Urban Anthropology," and "Sanctions." Entries for the Blackwell Dictionary of Anthropology, Thomas Barfield (ed.).
1998. Review of The Politics of Culture: Race, Violence, and Democracy. Jung Min Choi, Karen A. Callaghan,and John W.Murphy. American Ethnologist 25: 21-2.
2000. Comment on "Reconciliation and Revenge in Post-Apartheid South Africa," by Richard Wilson. Current Anthropology Vol 41.
2001. “Criminalization in the Context of Colonialism.” North American Dialogue. Newsletter of the Society for the Anthropology of North America 4:1, pp. 8-10.
2002. Review of Imperial Benevolence, by Jane Samson. Pacific Studies 24: nos. 3 /4: 115-118.
2002 Review of Ideology in the Language of Judges: How Judges Practice Law, Politics, and Courtroom Control by Susan U. Phillips. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11(2).
2002 Review of Gender Violence in Africa: African Women’s Responses by December Green. Contemporary Sociology 31(1): 22-23.
2003 Review of Susan Bibler Coutin, Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants’ Struggle for U.S. Residency. Theoretical Criminology 7(1): 131-133.
2004 Review of Protest, Policy, and the Problem of Violence Against Women: A Cross-National Comparison by S. Laurel Weldon, Women's Studies International Forum.
2008. Review of Law and Disorder in the Postcolony, edited by John and Jean Comaroff. Law and Society Review 42 (3): 683-685.
2010. Commentary on Panel: Transitional Justice: Global Circulations and Local Realities after Genocide and Mass Violence. Organizer: Alex Hinton. American Anthropological Association, Nov. 19, 2010. Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture. www.logosjournal.com
2011. Review of Under Construction: Making Homeland Security at the Local Level
by Kerry B. Fosher. American Ethnologist. 38 (1): 211-212.
2013 Review of Intimate Enemies: Violence and Reconciliation in Peru, by Kimberly Theidon. Human Rights Quarterly 35: 229-232.
2015. Excerpt from The Quiet Power of Indicators posted on The Conversation, http://theconversation.com/explainer-how-indicators-have-the-power-to-shape-our-world-43065.
2016 podcast on new book: http://newbooksnetwork.com/sally-engle-merry-the-seduction-of-quantification-measuring-human-rights-gender-violence-and-sex-trafficking-u-of-chicago-press-2016/
