About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

20 Griffith L. Rev. 817 (2011)
The Speculative Jurisdiction: The Science Fictionality of Law and Technology

handle is hein.journals/griffith20 and id is 827 raw text is: THE SPECULATIVE JURISDICTION
The Science Fictionality of Law and Technology
Kieran Tranter*
This article argues that scholarship on law and technology is a
thoroughly speculative activity. The textual signifiers of this
speculative orientation are the multiple incursions of science
fiction that locate and justify lawyers writing about technology.
Through a detailed examination of three law and technology
literatures - on early space technology, IVF and virtual worlds
- it will be shown that science fiction is the storehouse of
images and imaginings that substantiate the legal projection of
technological futures. When law confronts technology, science
fiction is its speculative jurisdiction. The suggestion is that
through a more through-going engagement with science fiction
as the speculative jurisdiction, law could engage more
adequately with the complexities and contingencies of
technological change.
This article argues that legal writing on technology is science fictional. As
such, it is suggested that much more engaging and critical legal scholarship
on technology is possible through a taking seriously of its inherent science
fictionality. The nexus between legal scholarship on technology and science
fiction is in the inherent speculation by lawyers of technological futures that
orientate and legitimate the project of law and technology.
This argument is presented in three stages. The first considers science
fiction as the West's mythform - that it is the dreaming place for the West's
technological futures. The second stage examines in detail how science
fiction functions as the speculative grounding to legal scholarship on
technology. Three literatures on technology are analysed: first-generation
space law scholarship (1956-65), IVF and law scholarship (1978-85) and
virtual worlds and law (2004-08). In each scholarship, science fiction
provides the location for a conception of technological futures that need law.
In this, science fiction forms the speculative jurisdiction. The third section of
the article reflects on the limited nature of the legal engagement with science
fiction. The science fictions that inform the speculative jurisdiction are
socially conservative. The technological futures charted by lawyers' writing
about technology are visions that invoke anxiety, horror and concern at the
loss of the 'natural' from the possibility of technological change. Science
fiction as Western mythform is not so limited. This final section draws
briefly on Octavia E Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy to form a different
speculative jurisdiction from which rather different technological futures can
Senior Lecturer, Griffith Law School, Gold Coast and Editor of the Griffith Laiv Review.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most