The network creates a space to challenge established and dominant modes of thought and analysis in the field of Equity & Trusts which downplay the political, economic, cultural and ethical aspects of equity. In establishing an international network of scholars we aim to support and nurture innovative engagements with equity past, present and future and cross-disciplinary collaborations. The ETRN works in collaboration with the Trusts & Estates Collaborative Research Network of the Law & Society Association.
Equity is protean, traversing a number of registers, from the law formerly emanating from the English Court of Chancery (now inscribed within the architecture of modern law and legal governance) to important jurisprudential questions concerning forms of judgment within and beyond law, and ethical modes of conduct(ing) and relating to law. In this sense there is no ‘equity’ as such but rather equities, each with divergent histories, overlapping and intersecting – and perhaps passing one another by – in complex ways, but holding them together is a relation to Law.
Those involved in the ETRN support scholarship which pursues different visions of equity from a range of theoretical perspectives, including: investigations into the histories, traditions and cultures of equity; visual, metaphorical and psychical representations of equity; equity’s imagination, creativity and improvisation; questions of power, affect, ethics and subjectivity such as trusting relations, decorum and gender; equity’s proliferation and protection of property and role in wealth inequity; and the practices of equity within but also beyond the law. The network’s overarching concern is with equity’s role in modern law and society and what visions of equity – past, present and future – are possible.
The network was founded by Nick Piska and Robert Herian, with support from the Consortium of the Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE) and the University of Kent Faculty Research Fund.