Flesh of the Law: Material Legal Metaphors

Abstract

Existing legal metaphors, even the predominantly spatial and corporeal ones, paradoxically perpetuate a dematerialized impression of the law. This is because they depict the law as universal, adversarial, and court‐based, thus ignoring alternative legalities. Instead, there is a need to employ more radically material metaphors, in line with the material turn in law and other disciplines, in order to allow law's materiality to come forth. I explore the connection between language and matter (the ‘flesh’ of the law) through legal, linguistic, and art theory, and conclude by suggesting four characteristics of material legal metaphors.