The nature of legal identity

Abstract

The dissertation explores the nature of fundamental constructs in Australian social and legal relationships. Legal identities are protean and culturally contingent. They involve subversible signifiers of authority, disability and individuation. The dissertation uses legal pragmatism in an original analysis of legal identity per se and of a range of contemporary and historic identities that are foundational or derivative. In doing so it offers an understanding of authority and registration in the liberal democratic infom1ation state. It grounds recent anxieties about identity theft. It addresses tensions inherent in ' seeing like a state'. It engages with statute law, case law and administrative practice. It refers to theorists such as Nussbaum, Sclunitt, Bell, Kant and Foucault.

Date of Award	2017
Original language	English
Supervisor	Maree SAINSBURY (Supervisor), Michael Wagner (Supervisor) & Susan PRIEST (Supervisor)