Muddling through Methodology: In Search of Authority for Discursive Readings of Legislation

Abstract

This paper describes theoretical and methodological tools deployed for contextual readings of legislation. The paper argues that unpacking the power relations and ideologies embedded within text becomes especially important when researching law in hegemonic polities in which the public domain is state dominated. Because legislation, as finished product, masks the contestations and contexts which have informed, precipitated and contextualised it, discursive readings of legislation repair the exclusion of non-state voices by interrogating and de-coding legislative text.