28. The Atmosphere of Crowds, with Illan Rua Wall

The Field Day Podcast

Crowds create atmospheres. Police try to control those atmospheres.

From the interaction between them, says Illan Rua Wall, emerges power. And that power can take the form of political upheaval and unrest, or the consolidation of pre-existing sovereignty.

A lecturer in law at the University of Warwick, Illan Rua Wall pursues questions of police and power through the lens of Critical Legal Theory, which he describes in this interview.

He also draws a line of continuity from the establishment of the world’s first police force, in Ireland, to the expansion of its experimental techniques throughout the British Empire, notably Hong Kong.

Illan Wall’s book, which is the subject of today’s talk, is Law and Disorder: Sovereignty, Protest, Atmosphere. It will come out with Routledge later in 2020.

He is an editor of the Critical Legal Thinking blog.

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