LSAANZ Conference 2025

Sociolegal studies provide important tools to investigate our most pressing social and legal problems, including environmental harm, inequality and injustice, and climate change. This conference will explore how understandings of rights and responsibilities are evolving in response to legal and social change; and how we can reimagine our socio-legal relationships in ways that foster resilience and better reflect our reciprocal relationships with each other and the world we live in.

The Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ) is excited to announce that the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha will host the 2025 LSAANZ Conference, bringing the conference to Aotearoa for the first time in eight years. Since its establishment in the 1990s, LSAANZ has been dedicated to fostering the study of law and society in Australia and New Zealand. Through conferences, the Association has provided a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue, bringing together researchers, academics, practitioners, and social leaders to address critical sociolegal issues.

This conference will bring together law and society scholars working across multiple disciplines and jurisdictions. Attendees will engage in thought-provoking and reflective conversations on key areas of sociolegal studies related to the theme Rights, Relationality, Resilience, Reciprocity. The Conference will include dedicated streams on environmental, Indigenous and feminist/gender studies, explored through multiple worldviews and positionalities, with a strong emphasis on Indigenous and Pacific knowledge. However, engagement with all aspects of law and society scholarship is welcome.

The 2025 LSAANZ Conference is an in-person event. Conference activities will include keynote and panel discussions, thematic sessions, an early career researcher workshop, book launches, a dinner and cultural events. We welcome attendance by postgraduate students. Students are invited to participate in a dedicated postgraduate workshop, as well as the broader conference.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa

Please note that the conference registration is open exclusively to LSAANZ members; you must be a current member to register for the 2025 LSAANZ Conference.

To join or renew your membership, please visit LSAANZ Membership.