• Research Professor
Education
Ph.D. in Law, University of Melbourne
LL.B., National University of Singapore
B.A. in English, National University of Singapore

Jothie Rajah

  • Research Professor
ABF Researcher

Jothie Rajah is Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. Her research lies at the intersections of law, language, and power.

She is in-coming Book Review Editor for Law & Society Review, and has been a founding member and past coordinator of the Law and Society Association Collaborative Research Network on British Colonial Legalities and a member of the consultancy team working on translating Lao laws as part of a United Nations Development project. In addition to two monographs, her research articles have been widely published in peer reviewed journals, edited collections, and legal handbooks, including the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies; Law, Text, Culture; the Journal of Law, Culture and the Humanities; the Transnational Law Journal; and The Routledge Handbook on Law and Society.

Her latest book, Discounting Life: Necropolitical Law, Culture, and the Long War on Terror, analyzes the United States’ justification for post-9/11 “War on Terror” through cultural and media framing, which authorized and legitimized the discounting of some lives so that others—American nationals—may live.

Research Focus

Law, legitimacy, and authoritarianism; the war on terror; law, culture, and the humanities; international organizations and the global public sphere in constructions of norms for the rule of law; and the relationship between law, religion, and national identity.