Seminar Series
Work in Progress in the Social Studies (WIPSS): 2018/9
22nd Year
19 June
The Legal Perforation of Maltese Coastal space –
Assembling the Maltese ‘Legal Chronotope’ in Fortress Malta
Dr David Zammit
Abstract
As an urban space directly located on the Maltese coastline and lacking encircling fortifications, Paceville represents something of an anomaly in Maltese social geography; one which must be understood in the light of legal and social history. This paper represents a first attempt to outline what is at stake, legally and socially, in the changing use of coastal spaces in Malta and to indicate how places like Paceville can be seen as simultaneously the culmination of the historical processes which have marked the internal elaboration and structuring of the Maltese environment and as an outpost of financial capitalism on Maltese shores.
As an urban space directly located on the Maltese coastline and lacking encircling fortifications, Paceville represents something of an anomaly in Maltese social geography; one which must be understood in the light of legal and social history. This paper represents a first attempt to outline what is at stake, legally and socially, in the changing use of coastal spaces in Malta and to indicate how places like Paceville can be seen as simultaneously the culmination of the historical processes which have marked the internal elaboration and structuring of the Maltese environment and as an outpost of financial capitalism on Maltese shores.
This paper takes a legal anthropological perspective on a late nineteenth century Maltese court case which facilitated the privatisation of the Dragonara promontory, and also the elaboration of Maltese legal temporality. In late Victorian times Maltese lawyers and architects were busily employed in defining the contours of 'Maltese law' and coastal space respectively: a process which enabled the development of Sliema, Saint Julians and subsequently Paceville. They were doing so in a context of colonial strategies of governance which stressed military and legal continuity with Knights' period Malta.
Dr David Zammit is a legal anthropologist and a lawyer whose PhD applied ethnographic methodologies to explore legal representation as storytelling in Maltese courts and legal offices. He also lectures and researches Civil Law and is head of the Civil Law department in the University of Malta.
Wednesday 19 June 18:00-19:00, followed by discussion. In Faculty of Arts Library, on the third floor of Old Humanities Building. Students are encouraged to attend. The public is cordially welcome.
Convenors: Prof. Paul Clough (Anthropology), Prof. Peter Mayo (Education), Dr Michael Briguglio (Sociology)