Okinawan life, at the crossroads of American militarism and Japanese capitalism, embodies a fundamental contradiction to the myth of the monoethnic state. Suspended in a state of exception, Okinawans have never been officially classified as colonial subjects of the Japanese empire or the United States, nor have they ever been treated as equal citizens of Japan. As a result, they live amid one of the densest concentrations of U.S. military bases in the world. By bringing Foucauldian biopolitics into conversation with Japanese Marxian theorizations of capitalism, Alegal uncovers Japan’s determination to protect its middle class from the racialized sexual contact around its mainland bases by displacing them onto Okinawa, while simultaneously upholding Okinawa as a symbol of the infringement of Japanese sovereignty figured in terms of a patriarchal monoethnic state. This symbolism, however, has provoked ambivalence within Okinawa. In base towns that facilitated encounters between G.I.s and Okinawan women, the racial politics of the United States collided with the postcolonial politics of the Asia Pacific. Through close readings of poetry, reportage, film, and memoir on base-town life since 1945, Shimabuku traces a continuing failure to “become Japanese.” What she discerns instead is a complex politics surrounding sex work, tipping with volatility along the razor’s edge between insurgency and collaboration. At stake in sovereign power’s attempt to secure Okinawa as a military fortress was the need to contain alegality itself—that is, a life force irreducible to the legal order. If biopolitics is the state’s attempt to monopolize life, then Alegal is a story about how borderland actors reclaimed the power of life for themselves. In addition to scholars of Japan and Okinawa, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in postcolonialism, militarism, mixed-race studies, gender and sexuality, or the production of sovereignty in the modern world. Alegal is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.

This book provides a succinct and accessible account of the critical role of legal and constitutional issues of the American Civil War.

The term "legal advocate" encompasses a growing field of advocacy that includes many social service areas, such as immigration law, environmental law, prisoner's rights, and sexual harassment law. This comprehensive guide to legal advocacy explores the opportunities available for those interested in the field, how legal advocates work, and what skills they need to succeed. Whether one is interested in becoming a victim advocate who helps a crime victim navigate the court system, or an advocate in immigration court, helping to build a case for legal asylum, legal advocacy is a rewarding career, and an invaluable service to people in need.

Protect yourself and your loved one with sound legal planning Gay and lesbian couples have gained a lot of legal ground in recent years, including the right to marry. Although same-sex marriage is legal, it’s important to stay up to speed on the laws governing parentage, adoption, civil unions, and domestic partnerships, which vary from state to state. And if you choose to remain unmarried, it’s essential that you protect your rights and define your relationship in the eyes of the law—A Legal Guide for Lesbian & Gay Couples can help. This plain-English guide shows you how to: have and raise children through adoption, donors, surrogacy, or foster parenting jointly buy a house or other property make decisions about living together, marrying, or registering make a will or living trust make medical decisions for each other, and deal with the end of a relationship. The 20th edition is completely revised to provide the latest on same-sex relationships and parentage laws. With Downloadable Forms: includes access to 35 essential legal forms, including a sample parenting agreement, a will, and more.(details inside).

This book addresses three major questions about law and legal systems: (1) What are the defining and organising forms of legal institutions, legal rules, interpretative methodologies, and other legal phenomena? (2) How does frontal and systematic focus on these forms advance understanding of such phenomena? (3) What credit should the functions of forms have when such phenomena serve policy and related purposes, rule of law values, and fundamental political values such as democracy, liberty, and justice? This book seeks to offer general answers to these questions and thus gives form in the law its due. The answers not only provide articulate conversancy with the subject but also reveal insights into the nature of law itself, the oldest and foremost problem in legal theory and allied subjects.

What legal status should be granted to artificial agents?