Conditions of Carriage: Formulations of Office and Place in Minor Jurisprudences of London

Speaker: Shaun McVeigh (University of Melbourne)

'A traveller in 1853 noted that 'the omnibus is a necessity and a Londoner cannot get on without it.' Peter Ackroyd, Biography of London, p.593

This paper considers some of the ways in which minor jurisprudences might provide a training in the conduct of the office of Jurisprudent of London (if such an office is still in use). Since the 1990s minor jurisprudences have emphasised variation and dissonance in relation major institutional and critical forms of jurisprudence. They have done so by finding and providing alternate sources, training and purpose in the instruction of the conduct of lawful relations. Reporting, rather loosely, on the writings of Peter Goodrich, Panu Minkkinen and Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihaloppous, this paper considers some of the ways minor jurisprudences recommend caring for the conduct of lawful relations of a place. The motivating conceit of this paper follows the understanding that London bears or carries a jurisprudence and that this can be studied through an engagement with the material ordering of the city. The paper reports back on research conducted between 2013-2017 on encounters of lawful relations along the TfL 345 bus route from Peckham bus Station to South Kensington.

Shaun McVeigh is a member Melbourne Law School and Institute for International Law and the Humanities, University of Melbourne.

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