This book explores the conceptual spaces and socio-legal context which
mental capacity laws inhabit. It will be seen that these norms are
created and reproduced through the binaries that pervade mental capacity
laws in liberal legal jurisdictions- such as capacity/incapacity;
autonomy/paternalism; empowerment/protection; carer/cared-for;
disabled/non-disabled; public/private. Whilst on one level the book
demonstrates the pervasive reach of laws questioning individuals mental
capacity, within and beyond the medical context which it is most
commonly associated with, at a deeper and perhaps more important level
it challenges the underlying norms and assumptions underpinning the very
idea of mental capacity, and reflects outwards on the transformative
potential of these realisations for other areas of law. In doing so,
whilst the book offers lessons for mental capacity law scholarship in
terms of reform efforts at both domestic and internationals levels, it
also offers ways to develop our understandings of a range of linked
legal, policy and theoretical concepts. In so doing, it offers new
critical vantage points for both legal critique and conceptual change
beyond mental capacity law.
The book will be of interest to researchers in mental capacity law,
disability law and socio-legal studies as well as critical geographers
and disability studies scholars.
