Description

The field of law and society aims through the use of social science theories and methods to overcome barriers separating the study of law and legal institutions from the study of culture and society.  Law and society scholars employ fieldwork-based approaches to gather insights into the impact of law and judicial decisions on people’s lives.  Many have a particular interest in the experiences of marginalized groups, such as rural villagers, the urban poor, ethnic or religious minorities, and indigenous peoples. 
 
Over the past 15 to 20 years, the law and society field has grown worldwide, including in Asia.  Yet teaching and research in Asia still emphasizes legal theory and legal philosophy, even as demand from young scholars for training in socio-legal studies has increased.
 
To satisfy this demand, the National University of Singapore (NUS) proposes to launch the Training Initiative for Asia Law and Society Scholars (TRIALS), to build capacity for empirical research on law, society, public policy and justice in Asian societies.  Both TRIALS co-directors, professors Lynette Chua (NUS) and David Engel (State University of New York at Buffalo), have occupied senior leadership positions in relevant professional associations in the United States and Asia.  TRIALS will, they write, help mentor a generation of young scholars and foster a body of scholarly work “to provide American as well as Asian researchers, government officials, and policy makers with reliable findings that can serve as a more sound basis for intellectual inquiry, policy making, law reform, and institution building than currently exists.”
 
Based on pilot trainings organized by Chua and Engel, the co-directors propose a series of workshops, each four days in length.  There will be five workshops over the life of the grant, each accommodating ten advanced graduate students and junior academics, and one follow up workshop for which program alumni are eligible to apply.  The workshops will take place during winter and summer breaks in Singapore and, depending upon the makeup of the applicant pool, possibly in Thailand and the U.S. as well.  Chua and Engel anticipate many applications from East and Southeast Asians enrolled in graduate programs in the U.S.  All participants must demonstrate in-depth knowledge of Asian languages and cultures, and a commitment to specializing in interdisciplinary law and social science research on Asia.
Three leading law and society scholars will join the co-directors at each workshop to provide grounding in the field, work with participants on their research projects, and counsel them on publishing and career development.  For each workshop, faculty expertise will be matched with the cohort’s research interests.  Mentoring will continue post-workshop, and p ublication of an edited volume or special journal issue featuring select papers by TRIALS participants is planned.
 
Our grant will support honoraria and travel for the faculty mentors and a stipend for workshop participants, as well as accommodation, meals and local transportation.  It will also include a fund for participants in need of financial assistance to subsidize travel.
 
Recommendation:                                That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a three-year grant of $238,000 to the NUS America Foundation to support TRIALS: Training Initiative for Asia Law and Society Scholars .