CRITICAL STUDIES IN IMPROVISATION – CALL FOR PAPERS

Expressions of interest  should be sent via email by 30th September to mmeireles01@qub.ac.uk
and completed papers must be submitted by 31st December 2015

Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation (CSI-ÉCI) invites submissions for a special issue with the theme, “Just Improvisation: Enriching child protection law through musical techniques, discourses and pedagogies,” guest edited by Sara Ramshaw (former ICASP Postdoctoral Fellow) and Paul Stapleton. We seek contributions from scholars and practitioners with an interest in exploring the possibility of transposing the ”language” of musical improvisation, that is, its discourses, practices and pedagogies, into the “key” or discipline of law, with a specific focus on child protection law.

Improvisation, as that which occurs “on the spur of the moment,” is commonly assumed to eschew all law, convention, structure or form. A growing number of improvising musicians and critical improvisation scholars criticise this understanding of improvisation. To improvise well requires enormous discipline and skill, as well as an attention to cultural history and memory.

Although improvisation is most often associated with the musical realm – for example, jazz music – critical legal improvisation studies (see, for example, Ramshaw) highlights the fundamentally improvisatory nature of Western common law and justice. As no two legal actions can be exactly the same, each judicial application of existing rules or past precedents to new facts creates, in fact, a new and improvised law. And it is the very nature of legal judgment that elicits a negotiation between the singularity of a particular case and the pre-existing rules or laws to which it must adhere or follow. Novelty and creativity, however, must be subordinated to tradition and precedent in order for law to remain legitimate and commanding in contemporary society. Law, in other words, cannot be seen to be produced on the spur of the moment. To be just, it must apply fairly and equally and be known by all in advance.

While not disputing the importance of fairness and equality in relation to law, the guest editors of this special issue call for increased recognition of the improvised creativity that is at the heart of legal decision making, specifically as it applies to the area of child protection law. This special Issue will bring together academic and non-academic participants, both locally and internationally, to discuss the possibility of transposing the ”language” of musical improvisation, that is, its discourses, practices and pedagogies, into the “key” or discipline of law. Our overall aim is to interrogate how to best equip those working in child protection (lawyers, judges, social workers, policy makers, community activists and third sector employees) to be confident in the improvisatory role which they are being called to undertake, where improvisation is understood as the technical ability and responsiveness to negotiate a smooth path between the general system of rules and an individual case.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

– The disciplined practice of improvisation as a tool for protecting children
– Teaching improvisation to child protection professionals
– The advantages of improvising child protection law
– The dark side of improvisation in child protection law
– The improvisatory judge
– The benefits and dangers of improvisational lawyering/advocacy
– The increased demand for legal improvisation in the area of child protection/family law

(CSI-ÉCI) encourages the inclusion of high-quality audio and visual content to accompany texts. It is the responsibility of the author to ascertain copyright and gain permissions. Submissions should be 4000-6000 words. Please submit expressions of interest for potential essays by September 30, 2015. Complete papers will be accepted until December 31, 2015. Information on the submission process and examples of previously published work can be found at www.criticalimprov.com. Inquiries can also be made to csi-eci@uguelph.ca.