Reading Durkheim in Darkness
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12134 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 45, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 2018
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 664±78
Reading Durkheim in Darkness
Carol J. Greenhouse*
This article is a contribution to the occasional series dealing with
major books that have influenced the authors. Previous contributors
include Stewart Macaulay, John Griffith, William Twining, Carol
Harlow, Geoffrey Bindman, Harry Arthurs, Andre
Â-Jean Arnaud, Alan
Hunt, Michael Adler, Lawrence O. Gostin, John P. Heinz, Roger
Brownsword, Roger Cotterrell, and Nicola Lacey.
I have chosen E
Âmile Durkheim's Division of Labor in Society
(1893). As for many social scientists, Division was part of my intro-
duction to anthropology, especially for its key concepts of collective
consciousness and social solidarity. A standard reading of it formu-
lates Durkheim's idea of law as the expression of collective con-
sciousness; however, later circumstances of rereading gave me a sense
of his own doubts on this very possibility. As my ethnographic work has
increasingly focused on the strategic aggrandizement of federal power
in the United States, I have been surprised to find myself repeatedly
reaching for Durkheim's book ± particularly for its association of the
value of social science with the vulnerability of modern society to
democratic crisis.
CHILDREN FOUND, CHILDREN LOST
For roughly a month spanning June and July, 2018, two parallel stories
unfolded on opposite sides of the world. In Thailand, on 23 June, twelve
young boys and their soccer coach were lost in a deep cave when rainwater
overtook their route. After ten days in the dark, they were found by divers.
Thai Navy SEALS and rescue divers joined them, providing food, medical
support, and encouragement ± including a chance to send messages to their
664
* Department of Anthropology, Princeton University, 116 Aaron Burr Hall,
Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States of America
cgreenho@princeton.edu
I am grateful to Alfred C. Aman, Jr. and Susan Suleiman for their thoughtful readings and
probing questions. The essay as a whole registers other debts too numerous to recount.
ß2018 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2018 Cardiff University Law School
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