Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Since its launch in 2012, the Law & Anthropology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology has endeavoured, as its name suggests, to bring together the disciplines of law and anthropology. The idea behind the effort to bring these two disciplines under one institutional roof is the conviction that, for an increasing number of highly topical themes, there is much to be gained from in-depth interdisciplinary research that draws on both legal and anthropological approaches.

The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology is one of the world’s leading centres for research in socio-cultural anthropology. Common to all research projects at the Max Planck Institute is the comparative analysis of social change; it is primarily in this domain that its researchers contribute to anthropological theory, though many programmes also have applied significance and political topicality. Fieldwork is an essential part of almost all projects. The Institute has three academic departments: Anthropology of Economic Experimentation: Frontiers of Transformation (Director: Biao Xiang), Anthropology of Politics and Governance (Director: Ursula Rao) and Law & Anthropology (Director: Marie-Claire Foblets).