This book project explors how different groups within society navigate and understand difficult contemporary legal issues – such as privacy, security and counterterrorism laws, and criminal law.
Using the lens of bestselling contemporary fiction from within the science fiction and urban fantasy genre (which has a wide impact on a diverse variety of groups), I will seek to explore both social responses to these types of laws, and social understandings of the legal ideals that underpin them (such as justice versus vengeance, and need for social regulation through law). The choice of genres is intentional and important, because these genres are not expected to provide realist presentations of the law and legal institutions (in ways that, for example, crime fiction is expected to), and through this lack of realist expectation have scope to facilitate an exploration of laws impact and its role in society in different ways. The use of fiction not bound by realist portrayals allows for creative fictional explorations of such topics as the criminalisation of poverty, the weaponisation of law intrinsic to authoritarian politics, and the social impact of counterterrorism law in ways that resonates with society. This is because the exploration of the story as read reflects and resonates life as experienced, in ways that might not be possible if bound to present a realist representation of the law as it relates to these issues. In this way this literature not only reflects social perceptions of the law, but also informs these perceptions in a form of feedback loop.