New Histories of Law, Power and Governance

In mid-June 2015 Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the American Presidency. By the time of the inaugural Griffith History Postgraduate Symposium, exactly a year later, this event had become newsworthy in Australia on an almost daily basis. A week after the symposium Britons voted to exit the European Union. Analysis of Trump’s presidency and policies, and the legal processes required to enact ‘Brexit’ as it came to be known, continue, as these events precipitate re-workings of sovereignty, security, and policing, and the legal frameworks that legitimise them. In doing so they have raised questions about national, political, and personal identities that have revealed the need for a greater historical understanding of the workings of power, law, and governance and their impacts on the lived experiences of those who are subject to the workings of state power through legal and political entities.

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