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In an era of globalisation, often described as the era of mobility and of the decline of the relevance of territory, the Roma and the Travellers embody a transnational and non-territorial society. Yet this minority group experiences deplorable living conditions and the survival of its culture is endangered. A study of minority protection mechanisms in international law reveals that the grasp of territory and "sedentarism" has far from disappeared from this branch of law. Territory (or the absence thereof) and movement are the main challenges faced by international law in the development of solutions to the situation of the Roma and the Travellers. In light of the failure of current minority protection regimes, the quest for recognition of a "Roma nation" appears to be an avenue worth exploring. However, while the Roma may not fall clearly within the parameters of minority protection, they do not fall clearly within the concept of nation either. When examining the potential of such recognition, one realizes that it is necessary to redefine the right of self-determination in the context of minority protection and in a transnational and non-territorial perspective.

In the context of globalization, the idea of place is reputed to be losing its footing. This thesis explores the implications of these developments with respect to the way that place is constructed in law by focusing on tensions between the concept of jurisdiction and the ways that the contexts of law overspill it, threatening to engulf comparative analysis. Central to the idea that jurisdiction is losing its familiar moorings is the implication that other forms of thinking about legal normativity are emerging as more commonsensical alternatives to the state-based idea of jurisdiction that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The thesis explores this hypothesis by bringing elements of the discipline of comparative law (conventionally state based) into play with elements of the discipline of legal anthropology (conventionally culture based). The focus for this theoretical intrigue is an Gitano population in the South of Spain that served as the fieldwork locale for seven months of ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 1995. Investigations are centered on the theme of family law. Familiar notions of state and culture, and the legal sensibilities associated with each, are examined through exploring the interplay between local expressions of Gitanitude in Jerez de la Frontera and regional, national, international, and global forces that structure legal sensibilities in the area. The first chapter explores the interplay by focusing on the context surrounding Spain's reforms to family law in the 1980s. The familiar frontiers of the state are prodded through this analysis. The second chapter then explores the frontiers of culture through an examination of a variety of expressions of Gitanitude in Spain. The third chapter brings modified versions of state and culture together in a reconceptualisation of family law. As a whole, the thesis suggests a new way of approaching the problematic relationship between context and the disciplines of comparative law an