Mitchell Travis

Mitchell travis

University of Leeds; m.travis@leeds.ac.uk

Nobody, Anybody, Somebody and Everybody: A Jurisprudence of the Body

This paper provides a conceptual overview of the place of the body in health jurisprudence. It begins by outlining an initial conceptual lack and theoretical aversion to materiality within the positivist tradition of law. The paper then considers liberalism as a conceptual space where bodies were considered to be interchangeable and largely removed from their environmental or corporeal contexts. It then moves to critiques of that approach, drawing on feminism, critical race theory and disability studies to argue that embodiment is always particular as well as institutionally and discursively constituted. Finally, the paper considers the recent turn towards vulnerability in legal studies, highlighting how universality may demand new approaches to law, social justice and the governance of health.

Bio

My work coheres around the materiality of the body and the ways in which it is understood through (or produced by) institutions and culture. Since 2014 I have worked closely with the intersex community to address the inequalities they have faced. Along with my long term co-author Fae Garland I have a book under contract with Bristol University Press entitled Intersex Embodiment: Legal Frameworks Beyond Identity and Patienthood due in 2022. My work in this area has informed the UK’s Government Equalities Office, the National Health Service, the Law Society of England and Wales, and the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs.

Selected publications

  • C. Dietz, M. Travis and M. Thomson (2020) A Jurisprudence of the Body (Palgrave)
  • M. Travis & F. Garland (2020) ‘Temporal Bodies: Emergencies, Emergence, and Intersex Embodiment’ in C. Dietz, M. Travis and M. Thomson, A Jurisprudence of the Body (Palgrave)
  • M. Travis & F. Garland (2020) ‘Making the State Responsible: Intersex Embodiment, Medical Jurisdiction and State Responsibility’ 47(2) Law and Society 298-324.
  • M. Travis (2019) ‘The Vulnerability of Heterosexuality: Consent, Gender Deception and Embodiment’ 38(3) Social and Legal Studies 303-326.
  • M. Travis & F. Garland (2018) ‘Legislating Intersex Equality: Building the Resilience of Intersex People through Law’ 389(4) Legal Studies 587-606.