This paper proposes critical legal engineering (CLE) as a new methodology for legal-geographic action research. While legal geography is on the rise, geographers rarely participate in legal or judicial process, and when they do – for example, as court expert witnesses – they merely respond to the pre-established agendas of the legal system. I argue that legal geographers’ knowledge on the nature of law and its relations with society is a source of power that could allow them to set legal agendas and pluralise legal discussions. CLE assumes that legal geographers can put forward technical legal arguments, thus using law’s own tools to implement normative agendas implied in critical research. However, CLE demands a dialectical attitude that preserves the contradiction between political ends and legal technology – while pursuing both of them at the same time. As I show, CLE can realise critical agendas in three ways. First, it co-opts the legitimacy provided by the legal system, lending it to the agendas that are otherwise perceived as “too radical.” Second, elevated by the law these radical agendas may gain greater power to influence political-economic realities even before the legal outcomes are decided. Finally, CLE draws out of “technical” legal discussions into the heat of the public debate, thus politicising the law. Having developed this methodological proposition in the course of my research on urban movements, I illustrate it with the strategy of Berlin's campaign Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen (DWE), which has crafted a legal argumentation based on Article 15 of the German Constitution to pursue re-municipalisation (or de-privatisation) of housing.

中文翻译：

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违反法律：作为行动研究策略的批判性法律工程

本文提出了批判性法律工程（CLE）作为法律地理行动研究的新方法。虽然法律地理学正在兴起，但地理学家很少参与法律或司法程序，而当他们参与时——例如，作为法庭专家证人——他们只是对法律体系的预先确定的议程做出回应。我认为，法律地理学家对法律性质及其与社会关系的了解是他们制定法律议程和多元化法律讨论的权力来源。CLE 假设法律地理学家可以提出技术性的法律论据，从而使用法律自身的工具来实施批判性研究中隐含的规范性议程。然而，CLE 需要一种辩证的态度，保持政治目的和法律技术之间的矛盾——同时追求两者。正如我所展示的，CLE 可以通过三种方式实现关键议程。首先，它吸收了法律体系提供的合法性，将其用于其他被认为“过于激进”的议程。其次，这些激进的议程被法律提升，甚至在法律结果确定之前就可能获得更大的影响政治经济现实的权力。最后，CLE 将“技术性”法律讨论引向公众辩论的热潮，从而使法律政治化。在我对城市运动的研究过程中提出了这个方法论命题，我用柏林的 Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen (DWE) 运动的策略来说明它，