{"id":143,"date":"2021-05-28T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/daretotransform\/?p=143"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:43:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:43:28","slug":"the-law-critique-and-question-reading-and-writing-group-a-space-to-connect-with-rather-than-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/learning-matters\/2021\/05\/28\/the-law-critique-and-question-reading-and-writing-group-a-space-to-connect-with-rather-than-for-students\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Law\u2019 Critique and Question Reading and Writing Group: a space to connect \u2018with\u2019 rather than \u2018for\u2019 students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Guest post by Verona N\u00ed Drisceoil (Senior Lecturer in Law, Sussex Law School) and year 1 students Ayodele Idowu-Bello, Tyrone Logue, Plum Philips, Judith Ohen and Miles Ratcliffe.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verona N\u00ed Drisceoil<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is a Senior Lecturer in Law (Education and Scholarship) at the Sussex Law School. Verona is currently working on two projects. One, with Imogen Moore (Bristol), exploring \u2018confidence, community and voice\u2019 in law school transitions and another exploring inclusion, exclusion and hierarchies in law schools. This second project asks, \u2018who is not in the room and why not?\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In this blog post we share, as students and faculty member, our experience of, and reflections on, the \u2018Law\u2019 Critique and Question Group of 20\/21. In this respect, we speak to the power of coming together \u2013 students and faculty – to share and connect in a non-hierarchical space to critique and question the law. In doing so, we managed to create something special and powerful \u2013 to do and be \u2018otherwise\u2019 (Jivraj<\/a>, 2020). We also, in part at least, managed to transgress (Hooks<\/a>, 1994) the problematic structures that dominate the student\/teacher relationship and continuum in Higher Education (HE) and ultimately to build a virtual community of friendship and connection during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the spirit and ethos of the Group, we deliberately write this post as a collective, but we will, as appropriate, highlight the unique experiences of faculty member and student\/s. We do this too as a means of providing a potential roadmap for others \u2013 whether faculty or student\/s \u2013 who would like to create something similar within HE spaces and across different disciplines. We appreciate that reading\/writing groups are not a new concept, but we nonetheless suggest that there was something unique created in this space. It was \u2018liberatory\u2019 and \u2018transgressing,\u2019 not only in content but in its being and approach. It allowed a space to \u2018reimagine\u2019 HE spaces outside the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this post, we begin by outlining the vision for the Group before then moving on to provide an overview of what we engaged with and why. It concludes with reflections on the impact of the Group and plans for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vision for the group<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As Verona noted in her invite to us at the start of the autumn term 2020, this group was set up as \u2018a non-hierarchical space for year 1 students to come together to read, to reflect and to practice writing\u2019.She noted thatthe group, was intended to be an accompaniment to the year 1 \u2018English Legal System\u2019 module (which Verona convenes in the department of Law at the University of Sussex) but also a space within which to challenge and critique that very system and to engage with a range of readings that had a decolonial and challenge-the-status-quo focus. Drawing on the words of Foluke Adebisi<\/a> (2020), Verona reminded us that \u2018to achieve a legal framework that works for all, we must include histories, voices, experiences and worldviews that are (often) absent and silenced\u2026\u2019 In this online space then, our aim was to embrace and champion voices, experiences and worldviews that are deliberately silenced as part of \u2018law\u2019s violence\u2019 and \u2018as violence\u2019 as we read in our first reading – (B)ordering Britain: Law, Race and Empire<\/em> by Nadine El Enany<\/a> (2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though reiterating that the group was intended to be \u2018organic in nature, and not formally structured in an academic sense\u2019 Verona suggested that the following might be potential benefits to joining the Group:<\/p>\n\n\n\n