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In this article I argue that the judicial concept of non-marriage racialises and orientalises minoritised communities and their marriages. Applying a critical postcolonial lens, I show how the development of non-marriage has been influenced by colonial racialising attitudes towards marriage. This has led to its application in racist and orientalist ways to demean and other minoritised marriage practices. My analysis of the case law exposes three patterns in the judicial discourse in this area. First, that the courts emphasise "English (Christian) marriage" and its supposed hallmarks when deciding if a ceremony is non-existent; second that judgments foreground the technical, formal aspects of the law obscuring the use of personal judicial opinions which are orientalist. Finally, the application of this concept to playacting, sham and forced marriages at the same time as legitimate minoritised marriage practices is demeaning and insulting to the already marginalised communities that practise them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I interrogate the English case law on citizenship deprivation and its effects on the migrant and diasporic communities most affected by it from a critical postcolonial perspective. I explore how it forms part of state responses to national security that are rooted in racist imperialist ideologies. These underpinnings are ignored in law because such responses are supposedly reserved for exceptional circumstances. This has led to a lack of critical awareness of the wider damage they cause. The damage caused is compounded by the ways that citizenship deprivation constitutes a technology of the politics of belonging. It orientalises people, "othering" and dividing them into those who belong and those who do not based on their differences. This approach leaves racialised and minoritised citizens more vulnerable to losing their citizenship which is a deliberate form of control reminiscent of the longstanding behaviour of colonialist imperialists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been quite a year so far(!) and as the wenches we are, we have been taking our time to collect our thoughts and reflections before sharing them at the start of this issue of the journal. In this editorial we think through the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on the world, on our lives and on our editorial processes. We renew our commitment to improving our operations as a journal and its health along with our own as we deploy wench tactics to restore, sustain and slow down to negotiate this new reality, this new world. We conclude with an introduction to the fascinating contents of this issue along with a collaborative statement of values on open access as part of a collective of intersectional feminist and social justice editors. Through all of the pain and suffering we focus our gaze on hope: hope that we can come through this global crisis together engaging in critical conversations about how we can be better and do better as editors, academics and individuals for ourselves, our colleagues and our journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been three years since we held the Feminism, Legality and Knowledge (FLaK) seminar to respond to our developing frustrations and excitement around feminist legal studies and academic publishing. In the wake of our 25th anniversary in 2018, we critically reflect further on our original intention to stock up on decolonising techniques to mix feminism, legality and knowledge whilst building on previous consideration of our self-proclaimed 'international' status. These reflections are prompted by editorial board members' experiences as participants in the Cardiff Law and Global Justice Centre's British Academy-funded Global South Socio-Legal Writing Workshops in Accra (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya) and Recife (Brazil) in 2018. Following an explanation of the concerns with academic publishing that have prompted this reflection, we provide a narrative of our experiences in each of the three workshops exploring the lessons learned and their impact on our practice as editors and scholars in feminist legal studies. We finish with a renewal of our commitment to decolonise our minds and practices by continuing to struggle to earn the label 'international' for the journal now and in future. A brief introduction to the contents of this issue of FLS follows the reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst much of the literature focuses on debating polygamy as a harmful practice, the purpose of this paper is to consider a different form of harm by exploring judicial responses to this relationship and the women who engage with it. Over the years, the courts have been faced with numerous questions on the recognition and regulation of polygamous marriages. Commencing with an overview of existing literature on polygamous marriage, I situate and explain the post-colonial feminist-inspired conceptual framework that underpins my judicial discourse analysis of English case-law in this area spanning from 1866 to the present day. A post-colonial feminist lens exposes the racist, orientalist, imperialist and sexist attitudes permeating judicial language in relation to polygamy and its participants. These patterns of discourse subordinate women in polygamous marriages, leaving them in a vulnerable position. With time, these discourses seemingly fade but, through a closer reading of recent cases, it becomes evident that they are still present, albeit in a subtler form as a matter of public policy, morality and ‘good’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]