This collection of essays is about legal geography, research methods, and context. It comprises 17 chapters by contributors from various countries including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Thailand, Switzerland, and Vanuatu. The topics considered range from Indigenous land rights, climate change, and water management to the provision of health services and much else besides.

Underpinning each contribution and the book as a whole is a commitment to understanding the geographical expression of law in theory and practice. This commitment extends to the ways in which law is framed by geography whether through judicial accommodation or, more profoundly, by negotiation over the status of law as a concept and its realisation in place. For the editors, the book is also a heartfelt acknowledgement of the influence of one of their mentors, the late Stewart Williams, who was an academic at the University of Tasmania.

The book is organised into six parts. The first part is the Introduction by the editors wherein they suggest that there is something distinctive about “Australian legal geography scholarship” focusing, as it does, on issues of environment, development, and culture. The second part of the book begins with a chapter by Gillespie on research methods in cross‐cultural settings (chapter 2). It is followed by a pair of chapters on Indonesia, community alliances, and Islam (by Calyx, Jessup, and Sihombing [chapter 3] and Schenk [chapter 4]), another on Indigenous knowledge in Vanuatu by Robinson, Raven, Kalfatak, Tari, Tualima, and Hickey (chapter 5), and one by Bargh and van Wegner on Maori law and protocols (chapter 6).

The third part of the book focuses upon “legal geographies of regulation” with a chapter by O'Donnell on the role of law and lawyers in relation to climate change (chapter 7). In chapter 8, Godden looks at Indigenous land rights in Australia and considers the status of space and place in theory and in practice. In chapter 9, Spencer provides a commentary on legal instruments and statutes transplanted from one jurisdiction to another and the consequences thereof. Chapter 10, by Bartel, focuses on categories of law in practice—in this case, environmental law in New South Wales. Rounding out this Part of the book, McFarland considers expert testimony using the methods of human geography (chapter 11).

Part four of the book provides four case studies—Graham on coal mining and water management (chapter 12), Turton on legal practice as regards the framing and passage of legislation related to coal seam gas (chapter 13), Sherval on energy and fossil fuel generation in the United Kingdom and Australia, paying particular regard to community resistance and activism (chapter 14), and Rickards and Jolley on law and geography informed by critical and feminist theories as applied to the Latrobe Valley (chapter 15).

Part five reprints one of Stewart Williams's papers on the provision and regulation of public health in Sydney (chapter 16). Finally, the editors recap the volume's intent, emphasising cross‐cultural perspectives, the people‐place‐law nexus, and methodology.

To say that this is an interesting book errs on the mundane and, worse, could be read as damning by faint praise. In fact, this book is truly remarkable on three counts. First, the contributors have, more often than not, training in law and human geography, experience in how law works in specific settings and specific issues (context), and a good understanding of law as a practice not just as an institution. Second, each contribution gives more or less equal weight to law and geography in the sense that the latter is not subsumed by the former nor is the former denied its status by virtue of the latter. Third, the contributors have a progressive agenda in that they argue that law can be an instrument for change even if, in some cases, opportunities for change can be forestalled by doctrine and precedent.

Throughout, the contributors are self‐conscious about the methods of human geography whether field‐based, qualitative, and/or quantitative. For example, Gillespie's contribution provides the reader with insights about research methods including “where, who and how the primary fieldwork data are collected.” Calyx et al. take the reader into community‐based research framed by a decision of the Indonesian constitutional court and informed by research on community awareness of their rights, including data imaging, mapping technologies, and the like.

The lead co‐editor, O'Donnell, focuses upon climate change and provides a detailed account of the methods used, their purpose, and the fit between case studies and conventional legal analysis. No recipe book is proposed that would reconcile the methods of legal argument and evidence with the methods of human geography. Rather, the author is self‐conscious about what each adds to our understanding of the issues.

From the outset, the editors suggest that their book and the contributions therein provide a “critical” perspective on the intersection between law and human geography. An important theme in contemporary human geography is its critical stance, favouring disputation and argument about convention whether formal as in legal doctrine or less formal as in the claims made by political classes and economic interests.

For those motivated by a concern about government climate change policy (or lack thereof), a critical perspective carries with it a level of urgency as represented by social movements including the “climate emergency.” Here, these commitments and sentiments are on display. But there is something more to these essays than dissent. The contributors want readers to understand the specifics of the issues from a geographical perspective and the ways in which law intersects with those issues to inform our understanding of law and society.

Legal practice is concerned with doctrine and the specifics of cases, and this concern is visible throughout the book. Equally, the contributors know a lot about the context in which they are working; they do not gloss over the specifics in a race towards a critical perspective on law. More often than not, the contributors give both their due. Perhaps this concern—for law and for geography—is an expression of the methods of legal training such as analysing cases and decisions just as it is an expression of the motivations behind becoming a human geographer. One way or another, every contributor has at their fingertips the detail of legal cases and the the context of cases.

Twenty‐five years ago, or more, research on law and geography was often anchored in critical legal studies. So, for example, a number of contributors to this book reference Judges and the Cities (1985), which was conceived in the debate about law as an institution, its methods of argument, and its societal consequences. This movement was quite different from other movements or programs of socio‐legal studies. It had as its object the role of law as a coercive instrument used to make cities not just imprint upon cities obligations and commitments through legal instruments.

At one level, this book goes beyond socio‐legal studies to engage with law as an instrument for making the present and the future. This reach is interesting on a number of counts. Most obviously, the contributors are not content to invent another socio‐legal studies movement so much as give expression to law as geographers in ways that allow us to better understand the adjudication of competing claims about our separate and shared futures. In this sense, their aspirations for change drive the project much more than a sense of making do with the present through a critical perspective on law as an institution.

At another level, this book is not an exercise in consciousness raising. Those in the critical legal studies movement could be accused of speaking to privileged (white) law students about a world barely glimpsed from their comfortable homes in suburban New York, Boston, or wherever. They sought to hold students to account for their assumptions about law as a means to an end, as an opportunity for a career, and as an institution that protects their interests. Critical legal scholars used the core subjects of the legal curriculum, such as contracts and property law, to challenge assumptions that law is neutral and is an expression of accepted norms and conventions. They emphasised power, coercion, and interests not represented in the theory and practice of adjudication.

In this book, the contributors reach out to the reader about the world in its various manifestations, a world that is changing and will have to change for the better when it comes to climate change. Unlike the critical legal studies movement, the objective of this book is to mobilise law and geography separately and together around fundamental issues including communities' environmental prospects.

This book is an outstanding contribution to the literature. It is a step beyond the research program on law and geography developed over the past few decades. It begins with culture, society, and the environment in Australia and the Asia‐Pacific and extends to fundamental questions about the constitution of time and space by law and the constitution of law by geography utilising the skills and expertise of human geographers.

这些论文集涉及法律地理，研究方法和环境。它包括来自澳大利亚，新西兰，加拿大，泰国，瑞士和瓦努阿图的不同国家的撰稿人17章。审议的主题从土著土地权，气候变化和水管理到提供卫生服务以及其他许多方面。

每个贡献和整个书籍的基础都是致力于在理论和实践上理解法律的地理表达。这种承诺扩展到通过地理手段来构架法律的方式，无论是通过司法手段，还是更深层次地通过就法律的概念地位及其实现进行谈判。对于编辑们来说，这本书也是对他们的一位导师，已故塔斯马尼亚大学学者斯图尔特·威廉姆斯的影响的衷心感谢。

这本书分为六个部分。第一部分是编辑的引言，他们认为“澳大利亚法律地理奖学金”有一些与众不同的地方，同时也侧重于环境，发展和文化问题。本书的第二部分从吉莱斯皮的一章开始，论述了跨文化环境中的研究方法（第二章）。随后是关于印度尼西亚，社区联盟和伊斯兰的两章（由Calyx，Jessup和Sihombing [第3章]和Schenk [第4章]），另一章是关于鲁瓦逊，拉文，卡尔法塔克，塔里的瓦努阿图土著知识的章节。 ，Tualima和Hickey（第5章），以及Bargh和van Wegner关于毛利人的法律和议定书的第1章（第6章）。

该书的第三部分重点介绍“法规的法律地理区域”，奥唐纳（O'Donnell）撰写了一章，内容是法律和律师在气候变化中的作用（第7章）。在第8章中，戈登探讨了澳大利亚的土著土地权利，并在理论和实践中考虑了空间和地点的地位。在第9章中，Spencer对从一个司法管辖区移植到另一个司法管辖区的法律文书和法规及其后果进行了评论。Bartel撰写的第10章着重于实践中的法律类别，在这种情况下，是新南威尔士州的环境法。在本书的这一部分中，McFarland完善了使用人文地理方法的专家证词（第11章）。

本书的第四部分提供了四个案例研究：关于煤矿开采和水资源管理的格雷厄姆（第12章），关于煤层气立法的框架和通过方面的法律实践的托顿（第13章），关于能源和化石燃料的谢瓦尔（Sherval）英国和澳大利亚的一代人，特别关注社区的抵制和行动主义（第14章），以及在拉特罗布山谷应用的批判和女权主义理论为基础的Rickards和Jolley的法律和地理知识（第15章）。

第五部分重印了斯图尔特·威廉姆斯关于悉尼公共卫生的提供和管理的论文之一（第16章）。最后，编辑们回顾了该卷的意图，强调了跨文化的观点，《人地法律关系》和方法论。

要说这是一本关于世俗的有趣书，更糟糕的是，因微弱的赞美而被理解为该死的。实际上，这本书在三个方面确实是非凡的。首先，贡献者经常接受法律和人文地理方面的培训，具有在特定环境和特定问题（上下文）中法律如何运作的经验，并且对法律实践不仅是作为一个机构，也有很好的理解。第二，每种贡献或多或少地赋予法律和地理同等的权重，因为后者不属于前者，也不因后者而否认其地位。第三，贡献者有一个渐进的议程，因为他们认为法律可以成为变革的手段，即使在某些情况下，变革的机会可以被理论和先例所阻止。

整个过程中，贡献者对人文地理方法（无论是基于现场，定性和/或定量的方法）都是自觉的。例如，吉莱斯皮（Gillespie）的贡献为读者提供了有关研究方法的见解，包括“在哪里，谁以及如何收集主要田野调查数据”。Calyx等。根据印度尼西亚宪法法院的决定，将读者带入基于社区的研究，并接受有关社区对其权利的认识的研究，包括数据成像，地图技术等。

首席联合编辑奥唐纳（O'Donnell）关注气候变化，并详细说明了所使用的方法，其目的以及案例研究与常规法律分析之间的契合度。没有提出可以使法律论证和证据方法与人文地理方法相协调的食谱书。相反，作者对每个因素加深了自己的意识，这些加深了我们对问题的理解。

从一开始，编辑们就建议他们的书及其著作为法学与人文地理之间的交汇点提供“批判性”的观点。当代人文地理学的一个重要主题是其批判性立场，它支持就惯例的争论和争论，无论是法律学说中的正式形式还是政治阶级和经济利益主张中的非正式形式。

对于那些出于对政府气候变化政策（或缺乏气候变化政策）关注的动机而来的人来说，批判性观点带有一定程度的紧迫感，这一紧迫感由包括“气候紧急情况”在内的社会运动所代表。在这里，这些承诺和观点得以展示。但是这些论文除了持异议之外，还有其他东西。投稿者希望读者从地理角度理解问题的具体内容，以及法律与这些问题相交的方式，以加深我们对法律和社会的了解。

法律实践与学说和案件的细节有关，这种担忧在整本书中可见。同样，贡献者对他们所处的环境了解很多。在争夺法律批判性观点的竞赛中，它们并没有掩盖细节。贡献者往往会同时给出他们应得的。也许对法律和地理的关注是法律培训方法的一种表达，例如分析案例和决策，同时也表达了成为一名人类地理学家背后的动机。每个贡献者都以一种或另一种方式触及法律案件的细节和案件的背景。

25年前，甚至更早的时候，法律和地理学研究通常以批判性法律研究为基础。因此，例如，本书的许多撰稿人都引用了《法官与城市》（Judges and the Cities，1985），这是在关于法律作为一种制度，其论证方法及其社会后果的辩论中构思的。该运动与其他运动或社会法律研究程序完全不同。它的目标是将法律的作用作为强制性工具，使城市不仅仅通过法律手段来体现城市的义务和承诺。

从一个层面上讲，这本书超越了社会法律研究，可以与法律联系起来，成为创造现在和未来的工具。从许多方面来看，这种影响是有趣的。最明显的是，贡献者并不满足于发明另一项社会法律研究运动，而是以使我们更好地理解关于我们各自独立和共同的未来的相互竞争主张的裁决来表达作为地理学家的法律。从这个意义上说，他们对变革的渴望比通过对法律作为一种制度的批判性观点来推动与当前的做事感更能推动该项目。

从另一个角度讲，这本书不是提高意识的练习。批判法学研究运动的那些人可能被指控与特权（白人）法律系学生谈论一个几乎没有瞥见他们在纽约郊区，波士顿或任何地方的舒适住宅中所见的世界的情况。他们试图让学生对自己关于法律的假设负责，这是达到目的的手段，职业的机会以及维护自己利益的机构。批判性法律学者使用法律课程的核心主题（例如合同和财产法）来挑战法律是中立且是公认的规范和惯例的表达的假设。他们强调了审判理论和实践中没有表现出的力量，强迫和利益。

在这本书中，投稿人以各种表现形式向读者介绍了这个世界，这个世界在不断变化，在应对气候变化时必须不断改善。与批判性法律研究运动不同，本书的目的是围绕包括社区环境前景在内的基本问题，分别和共同动员法律和地理。

这本书是对文学的杰出贡献。这是过去几十年来制定的法律和地理研究计划的第一步。它从文化，社会，以及在澳大利亚和亚太地区的环境，并延伸到约的时间和空间受到法律宪法基本问题和法律的利用技能和人文地理的专长地理宪法。