“Contesting the Self: Negotiating Subjectivities in Nineteenth Century Ontario Defamation Trials”
“Contesting the Self: Negotiating Subjectivities in Nineteenth Century Ontario Defamation Trials”
“Contesting the Self: Negotiating Subjectivities in Nineteenth Century Ontario Defamation Trials.” Studies in Law, Politics and Society 11: 3 – 40.
Abstract: Understanding the hegemonic quality of legal discourse requires us to view hegemony as unfolding in multiple sights of discursive practice. Thus, we must begin to analyze not only hegemonic legal discourse but hegemony in social sights of legal practice in order to see that legal practice is essential in processes of domination and social ordering. In this article, I explore the processes of political subjection and resistance as they manifest in witness testimony and judicial decisions from late nineteenth century defamation trials in Ontario. I argue that slander and libel suits were integral in constructing particular legitimate knowledges about class and gender as categories of social identity.
Link to article
Date Published: 1991
Publisher: Studies in Law, Politics and Society
Publisher Website: https://www.emeraldinsight.com/series/slps