The goal of this workshop is to reflect on the reconstructive potential of critical theory in legal research. In particular, this project engages with the praxis of immanent critique, which offers a nuanced pathway for critically engaging with social structures, cultural practices, and epistemological assumptions. Rather than analysing these elements from an external standpoint, immanent critique reveals contradictions and tensions inherent within them. By exposing how social practices often fall short of their own ideals, it highlights areas ripe for transformation and improvement. In doing so, immanent critique identifies unrealised normative potentials, offering scholars a powerful tool to challenge the status quo from within established norms, concepts, and practices.
The field of legal studies offers a particularly fertile ground for the method of immanent critique. In law there is a long tradition in Critical Legal Studies (CLS), and this tradition has often been criticised for its lack of reconstructive potential. While it excels at exposing the limits and contradictions of legal reasoning, CLS leaves open the question of what can be built in the aftermath of critique. At a time when many of the legal frameworks underpinning multilateral cooperation – including the UN, WTO, international Human Rights treaties and the project of European integration – are in crisis, legal scholars face the question how to use critical insights to propose legal reforms that political hierarchies, social inequities and economical inequalities.
It is for this reason that this project aims to bring together PhD students and Fellows from across the EUI with the objective to:
(a) Increase our understanding and knowledge of the method of immanent critique.
(b) Operationalise this method of critique in our own research projects.
No prior knowledge is required, as all relevant theories and concepts will be thoroughly explained and discussed. We will organise three reading groups in which the method of immanent critique is discussed as well as a a workshop in which experts in different disciplines engage with and respond to the work of participants.