Introduction

Touch eludes representation, it traverses the boundaries of the body, it comes from being and goes straight back into being: unlike other senses, there is no distance between that which touches and that which is touched. This sets touch apart from the other senses, and gives it a spatiotemporal dimension which paralyses the law, unequipped to synthesise the dynamism of such movement. This chapter provides an introduction to the relationship between touch and the normativity. Drawing from philosophy, critical legal theory and literature, it attempts to unravel the complex relationship between tactful intrusions of the law and the untactful movement of touch, its ability to form, deform and reform what it touches.