CALL FOR PAPERS: Oral sources and Non-traditional legal sources [45th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society] (Christchurch, New Zealand: University of Canterbury, 3-5 DEC 2026) [DEADLINE 20 JUL 2026]

(Image source: University of Canterbury, https://www.canterbury.ac.nz)

Dates:  3 – 5 December 2026

Location: The University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Conference theme: ‘Oral sources and Non-traditional legal sources’

Legal historians have traditionally looked to cases, statutes, and juristic literature. Yet the history of law has never been confined to such conventional legal sources. The use of oral sources and non-traditional materials raise important methodological questions for legal historians: what counts as a legal source? and how might law and history be written differently?

The 2026 conference theme invites consideration of oral sources and non-traditional legal sources, in every sense, in the context of law and history. Some conference streams will focus specifically on oral sources, including oral testimony, oral history, memory, storytelling, folklore, and intergenerational transmission. The theme invites participants to reconsider the sources of law and history.

Oral sources are especially important for histories of Indigenous law. We invite papers on tikanga Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customary law, and practices grounded in kinship, place, obligation, authority, and procedure. Such work may examine how colonial legal systems have misunderstood, appropriated, suppressed, or transformed Indigenous legal knowledge.

The conference also invites engagement with non-traditional legal sources more broadly, including newspapers, petitions, letters, council decisions, archival records, folklore, family histories, demographic material, and socio-economic data. Newspapers, for example, were forums in which trials were reported, in which the reputations of parties could be sensationalised, and by which communities could engage with the law. In essence, newspapers and other non-traditional sources can illuminate how law was experienced in everyday life.

This conference invites participants to explore oral and non-traditional legal sources. Themes may include: the challenges of using oral and non-traditional sources; customary law; the relationship between memory and the law; and the role of non-traditional sources to explore law and society.

Papers are welcome from all periods, jurisdictions, disciplines, and methodological approaches. We also welcome papers that are outside of the conference theme.

This conference is a co-hosted event supported by Monash University and the University of Canterbury.

Call for Paper Guidelines

On behalf of ANZLHS, the Conference Organising Committee cordially invites papers from any period or geographical area, and from all disciplines and fields, including but not limited to law, legal theory, history, political science, indigenous studies, gender studies and law and literature.

Papers are invited on any topic, but the conference organisers particularly welcome abstracts addressing the conference theme of ‘Oral Sources and Non-Traditional Legal Sources’.

Please note presenters must be members of ANZLHS before their papers are presented. You can join or renew here: https://anzlhs.org/join-us/.

An Early Career Researcher (ECR) session will be held on Thursday 3 December 2026. Details will follow.

If you are an ECR, please indicate your interest in attending the session when submitting your abstract. Graduate students may apply for Kercher Scholarships to support their attendance at the conference. Please contact the Organising Committee at anzlhs2026@gmail.com by Monday 6 July 2026 to express interest in this scholarship. Graduate students and other ECRs may also wish to enter for the Forbes Society Prize (see https://anzlhs.org/francis-forbes-society-for-australian-legal-history-annual-prize/). Please notify the conference conveners of your intention to apply for the scholarship at the time of submitting your abstract.

The Society’s peer-reviewed journal law&history (see https://anzlhs.org/journal/) will consider submissions from those who present papers at the conference.

Registration details and accommodation options in Christchurch will follow.

Abstracts should be no more than 300 words and should be accompanied by a short biography (100 words). Panel submissions are also warmly encouraged. Submissions should be sent to anzlhs2026@gmail.com.

We look forward to receiving your abstracts by Monday 20 July 2026. Acceptances will be communicated by 17 August 2026.

CONFERENCE: 39th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society (Online, 9 December 2020)

 

(Source: ANZLHS)

We received the following update on the 39^th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society’s annual conference:

39^th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society

Join us for an intensive 1 day world-wide gathering devoted to law in history

9 December 2020

Hosted by Event Services at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand

Keynote plenary sessions will feature

Joshua Getzler, Oxford University, on “ Six Nations of the Grand River, military feudalism, and the roots of ‘honour of the Crown’.”

Miranda Johnson, Otago University, on “Reckoning with a Pacific empire state: Race, nation, citizenship and the idea of New Zealand.”

A Closing Address by Dame Sian Elias, former Chief Justice of New Zealand

The organisers have accepted 39 individual papers and 7 panel presentations. They will be run in four concurrent parallel sessions throughout the day. The programme will be uploaded to the ANZLHS website page shortly: https://anzlhs.org/conferences-2/

The timings will be specified according to the NZDT time zone – which is UTC+13. We have attempted to time presentations so that are as reasonable as possible for the presenters (but will be difficult for some). The conference will begin at 9.00am and conclude at 7.00pm NZDT

To cover Event Services charges, and to ensure a high quality of digital platform delivery utilising Zoom, Vimeo and Twilio, we are asking all attendees to pay a modest registration fee. In addition, the rules of the ANZLHS require all presenters to pay the Society’s 2020 annual subscription. So ‘full member registration’ applies to presenters who have paid the 2020 Society subscription in advance; ‘full non-member registration’ applies to presenters (some of whom will have been members in the past) who have not yet paid the 2020 Society subscription. We are waiving registration fees for postgraduate student presenters. The portal for registrations will be launched shortly through the website page. The cost for registration is as follows in $NZ:

Full member registration: $130; Full non-member registration: $ 215; Full-time post graduate presenters: Fee waiver; Attendance only registration: $130

Graduate students are invited to apply for Kercher Scholarships. Five scholarship awards will be made that may adorn your cv even though there is no monetary element to the scholarship this year. Please apply to Katherine Sanders: k.sanders@auckland.ac.nz by 20 November if you have not already applied. Graduate attendees may also wish to enter their paper for the Forbes Society Prize. The Society’s peer-reviewed journal law&history will consider submissions from those who present papers at the conference. In the meantime further information about the conference may be gleaned from David Williams: dv.williams@auckland.ac.nz

CALL FOR PAPERS : “One Empire, Many Colonies, Similar or Different Histories?”, Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society(Auckland, N-Z, 9-12 December), DEADLINE : 15 July

(Source : ANZLHS)

CALL FOR PAPERS (DEADLINE IS ON 15 JULY)  : 

Abstracts are invited from scholars bringing historical perspective on law who wish to gather at The University of Auckland and AUT University – there to listen to and discuss papers and panels on aspects of law in history. The 2020 theme invites a comparative lens on British imperial and colonial histories. Other papers with an historical perspective on law might include work that positions law in a specific temporal frame; deals with histories of law, lawmaking, and legal ideas; or has a focus on legal institutions and their personnel. Proposals from postgraduate and early career researchers are welcome.

Individual paper proposals for a 20 minute presentation must include an abstract (no more than 300 words) and a biographical statement (no more than 100 words).

Panel proposals by 3 or 4 speakers should include the above, plus a panel title and brief rationale for the panel as a whole (no more than 300 words).

SYMPOSIUM : 9-12 DECEMBER 2020

39^th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society scheduled to be held in Auckland, 9^th-12^th December 2020 will go ahead. 

HOW TO APPLY : 

All abstracts must be submitted to Karen Fairweather: k.fairweather@auckland.ac.nz  

Graduate students are invited to apply for Kercher Scholarships to assist them in attending the conference. Please apply to Katherine Sanders: k.sanders@auckland.ac.nz by 31 August.  

 

MORE INFORMATION : https://anzlhs.org/