What insights can the literature on legal pluralism and cultural pluralism written by
ethnographers of courts provide to ethnographers of legislatures? Focusing on Anglo-
American legal systems, I explore how analyses of cultural pluralism can change
when one moves from courts to legislatures. Three analytical shifts can occur when
switching institutional perspectives. First, in Anglo-American courts, contexts are
often made cultural as one technique among many to create a suitable interpretation
that will lead to resolution. In the corresponding legislatures, contexts are often
made cultural through a form of quantification. Second, in these courts, outsiders
(not court officials) tend to embody culture, contributing to an ahistorical account of
what culture is. In the legislatures, anyone, even representatives themselves, can be
cultural, transforming being cultural into a political tactic that renders historical and
social connections visible. Therefore, people are made cultural in different ways in
the two settings. Third, in Anglo-American legislatures, law is always a compromise.
As laws travel out of legislatures and into courts, the agonism at laws’ origin is
forgotten, and laws are seen as acontextual. Thus, I suggest, cultural difference has
the potential to lead to systemic transformation more easily at legislative levels than
it can in courts.