Abstract

I set out to attempt three critical tasks in this paper. To break through the hegemonic Northo-centric jurisprudential principles, I introduce an alternative paradigm known as “the Global South as Method” to understand law as a discipline. I shall first outline the interconnected hegemonic forces shaping the legal institutions. Then, three major trends of these hegemonic ideologies about law, jurisprudence, and legal education are examined: (i) law as static and strict rules; (ii) jurisprudence as a zero-sum game; and (iii) legal education is commodified to cater for global capitalism. I then suggest ways to look through the Global South with a view to transforming the structure of subjectivity and knowledge-production regimes, as well as envisioning new epistemological realms. To de-center the epistemological norms of the Global North, I propose multiplying our frames of reference towards socially, culturally, literarily, historically, and institutionally-situated perspectives as a strategy of critical syncretism of legal disciplines and other disciplines. The Global South as Method quests for legal heteroreferentiality but does not turn them into a norm which will end up another hegemonic knowledge-production regime.