Allard Hall is home to many research groups, composed of faculty, staff and students who collaborate in their areas of shared interest. While these groups represent disparate areas of inquiry, they share the conviction that we can accomplish more when we work together. Explore the research groups below, and see how they propose to address global challenges through collaborative efforts.
Law and Cities
Cities are legal places. They are constructed by law and they produce law. Faculty and students in the Law & Cities Research Group take law and cities, and the interaction between them, as productive sites of inquiry. Through examination of urgent issues — housing and homelessness, development and economic security, civic participation and democracy, sustainability and climate change — we ask how cities are shaped by law, and law by cities.
For more information about the Law & Cities Research Group, or for notification about upcoming events, please contact law.cities@allard.ubc.ca.
The Law & Cities Research Group, based at the Allard School of Law, welcomes faculty members and graduate students from other disciplines who are engaged with law and cities.
Samuel Beswick
Assistant Professor
Brenna Bhandar
Associate Professor
Alexandra Flynn
Associate Professor
Douglas Harris
Professor and Nathan T. Nemetz Chair in Legal History
Ngai Pindell
Dean and Professor
Research Activities
The Law & Cities Research Group is a loose knit collection of scholars and students working to understand and explain the many ways that law and cities interact. Members of the Group work with several cross-cutting themes, including:
- Business Organizations & Entrepreneurial Activity
- Climate Change & Sustainability
- Colonialism & Reconciliation
- Democracy & Civic Participation
- Housing & Homelessness
- Indigenous Governance & Intergovernmental Relations
- Poverty & Inequality
- Property & Land Use Regulation
- Technology & Privacy
Members of the group organize seminars, speakers, workshops, and conferences.
Teaching Law & Cities
In addition to their diverse research activities, members of the Law & Cities Research Group teach a range of courses that engage extensively with cities and law. The list of recent offerings includes:
- LAW313 Legal History: Property and the City
- LAW343 Topics in Public Law: Law and the City
- LAW431 Condominium Law
Publications by group members are listed by year of publication under the cross-cutting themes.
at UBC:
in Canada:
- the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal
- Massey College, Toronto
around the globe:
- the Urban Law Centre, Fordham University, New York City
- the City Futures Research Centre, UNSW, Sydney
Law and Humanities
The Canadian Network of Law & Humanities (CNLH) brings together a community of scholars interested in the cultural, imaginative, and embodied aspects of law. The goal of CNLH is to be a flagship for law and humanities research and teaching in Canada by fostering collaborative research, sharing teaching resources, and organizing events.
For more information, please visit cnlh.ubc.ca or contact info@cnlh.ubc.ca.
Joel Bakan
Professor
Peter A. Allard School of Law
Brenna Bhandar
Associate Professor
Peter A. Allard School of Law
Carole Blackburn
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology, UBC
Julen Etxabe
Assistant Professor, Canada Research Chair in Jurisprudence and Human Rights
Peter A. Allard School of Law
Denise Ferreira da Silva
Professor
Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, UBC
Mark Harris
Associate Professor
Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, UBC
Mary Liston
Associate Professor
Peter A. Allard School of Law
Michelle LeBaron
Professor
Peter A. Allard School of Law
Renisa Mawani
Professor & Canada Research Chair, Colonial Legal Histories
Department of Sociology, UBC
Law and Humanities is an interdisciplinary approach that emphasizes the cultural, literary, and imaginative aspects of law, without forgetting its ethical and political implications. As a field of research, law and humanities encompasses diverse areas of study, including law and literature, legal storytelling, law and film, law and language, critical race theory, feminist approaches to law, law and emotions, etc. In addition, law and humanities scholars seek to reflect on law as an embodied and sensorial practice and welcome experiential and creative pedagogies in the classroom, such as theatre-based teaching and the arts (painting, graphic novels, music, etc.)
In addition, members of the Canadian Network of Law & Humanities teach a range of courses that explore this intersection. Some recent offerings include:
- LAW300 Jurisprudence and Critical Perspectives
- LAW312D Law and Literature
- LAW312D Justice, Diversity, and Legal Legitimacy
Representative publications of our members are listed on the Canadian Network of Law & Humanities website.
- UBC Public Humanities Hub
- Groupe de recherche sur les humanités juridiques
- ANU Centre for Law, Arts and the Humanities
- Law and the Human Network, University of Kent
- Institute for International Law and the Humanities
- The Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities
- Birkbeck Centre for Law and the Humanities
- Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia
- European Network for Law and Literature