The Law and Society Association (LSA), in collaboration with the Lead Organizers for the 2005-2007 LSA Summer Institutes in Sociolegal Studies, will conduct two Summer Institutes that form part of a sequence of three, to be held in 2005 in Oxford, UK, in 2006 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and in 2007 in Santa Barbara, USA. The Institutes will build networks of relationships and publishing activities that will expand and enrich international outreach. Approximately 72 "new entrants" to the field over three continents will participate in intensive four-day Institutes, led by distinguished faculty from both the US and international institutions. The three Institutes will be unified by the intellectual theme of the intersection of rights and regulation. In the context of the tricontinental nature of the 2005-2007 Institutes, this theme will advance knowledge and understanding within sociolegal studies by developing its transnational and comparative dimensions as well as by systematically linking sub-fields (specifically those of regulation and rights) in ways that may also provide a model to others for future research. Three sets of concrete activities will link the sequence of Institutes to broaden their impact: a website that will showcase the work of emerging scholars in a high quality web-based publication; synergistic links with existing Collaborative Research Networks already established by LSA; and editorial collaboration across the three Institutes that will coordinate traditional publication objectives (special issues in leading sociolegal journals). The combined impact of the Institutes and the activities that link them will be three-fold. First, U.S. students and junior faculty will gain exposure to international sociolegal scholarship in a context that initiates personal relationships and fosters future collaboration with foreign counterparts. Secondly, the Institutes will broaden the participation of under-represented groups and foster diversity in the field, especially racial and geographic diversity. Thirdly, the Institutes will enhance the infrastructure (and demonstrate the potential) for interdisciplinary research and education through a transnational network that feeds into publication, particularly of the work of junior scholars in the field. This project was supported in part by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering.
