The Coercive Power of the Law: Vulnerable Bodies and Boundaries of Perception - Hardcover

by Riley Clare Valentine (Author), Zane McNeill (Author)

This book offers a critical exploration of the interplay between law, care ethics, and the body, emphasizing how legal systems both reflect societal values and regulate and discipline bodies and sexualities that deviate from normative standards, branding them as deviant or pathological. The authors contend that visibility--often celebrated as empowering--frequently serves as a mechanism of state control, subjecting marginalized bodies to cycles of hyper-visibility and erasure. Grounded in critical disability studies, queer theory, and Foucault's theories of power, the book challenges liberalism's focus on rights and autonomy, advocating instead for a framework centered on care ethics.

Back Jacket

This book offers a critical exploration of the interplay between law, care ethics, and the body, emphasizing how legal systems both reflect societal values and regulate and discipline bodies and sexualities that deviate from normative standards, branding them as deviant or pathological. The authors contend that visibility--often celebrated as empowering--frequently serves as a mechanism of state control, subjecting marginalized bodies to cycles of hyper-visibility and erasure. Grounded in critical disability studies, queer theory, and Foucault's theories of power, the book challenges liberalism's focus on rights and autonomy, advocating instead for a framework centered on care ethics.

Riley Clare Valentine, Ph.D. is a political theorist. They obtained their Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. Their books include Progressive Liberalism and Neoliberalism in American Politics: The Heterodoxical Imperative (Palgrave, 2024) and Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Radical Queer History (2025).

Zane McNeill, M.A, is the co-editor of Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future (2024) and Politics as Public Art: The Aesthetics of Political Organizing and Social Movements (2023) and the editor of Building Multispecies Resistance Against Exploitation: Stories from the Frontlines of Labor and Animal Rights (2024).

Author Biography

Riley Clare Valentine, Ph.D. is a political theorist. They obtained their Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. Their books include Progressive Liberalism and Neoliberalism in American Politics: The Heterodoxical Imperative (Palgrave, 2024) and Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Radical Queer History (2025).

Zane McNeill, M.A, is the co-editor of Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future (2024) and Politics as Public Art: The Aesthetics of Political Organizing and Social Movements (2023) and the editor of Building Multispecies Resistance Against Exploitation: Stories from the Frontlines of Labor and Animal Rights (2024).