I Fought the Law and the Law Won? Legal Consciousness and the Critical Imagination

Halliday, Simon; Morgan, Bronwen

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2350262

Cited by 20 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Building upon this analytical insight, many scholars have identified and fleshed out the complex and dynamic nature of legal consciousness (Hull 2003;Gallagher 2006;Halliday and Bronwen 2013;Engel 2016). In some instances, ordinary people's apparent resistance to law implies their embrace rather than rejection of legality (Hull 2003), moral outrage that ideals and rights embedded within law are betrayed (Engel 2016), or a tactical use of law in pursuit of collective interests beyond formal legality (Halliday and Bronwen 2013). In this article, in drawing particular attention to daily survival strategies of the factory workers, I examine legal consciousness as rooted in their individual circumstances and highlight the critical role of time in making sense of varied consciousness.…”

Section: Legal Consciousness and Precariousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coping with Precariousness: How Social Insurance Law Shapes Workers' Survival Strategies in Vietnam

Nguyen¹

2020

Law Soc Rev

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This article examines the role of social insurance law in the survival strategies of factory workers in Vietnam, especially when they are faced with pressing family needs and an uncertain future. Despite the official discourse of the law which encourages employees to accumulate social insurance for their pension benefits, workers in this study have considered their social insurance fund as a form of saving and opted to gain early access to it when they are in desperate need of money. Workers understand and use the law in a way that answers to their needs; however, such action simultaneously puts them outside the protection of the law. In workers' daily struggles, law generates a moral tension between rights and needs, and ultimately perpetuates their precarious, vulnerable condition. The article demonstrates how workers' legal consciousness varies according to their perception of their precariousness, a precariousness generated by the fragile nature of their work and underpinned by their traditional familial moral obligations. This research advances our understanding of the way state law in postsocialist regimes informs social action and consciousness in ways that oftentimes contradict the spirit of the law.

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Section: Legal Consciousness and Precariousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coping with Precariousness: How Social Insurance Law Shapes Workers' Survival Strategies in Vietnam

Nguyen¹

2020

Law Soc Rev

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“…Legal consciousness is neither static nor unitary. Rather, it holds in tension a multiplicity of actors and their often contradictory or overlapping ideas about the nature and function of law and the variable ways people encounter and reconcile the law in their lives (see, e.g., Halliday and Morgan 2013).…”

Section: Legal Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shari‘a Consciousness: Law and Lived Religion among California Muslims

Massoud¹,

Moore²

2020

Law Soc. Inq.

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Shari‘a (commonly translated as Islamic law) is at the epicenter of anti-Muslim discourses in the United States. How do Muslims in the United States understand and experience shari‘a in the context of virulent attacks on it and on Islam and Muslims more generally? This article explores the meanings Californian Muslims give to and the intentions they derive from shari‘a when dominant discourses represent shari‘a as a cause for concern in American life. Drawing from fieldwork and interviews with Muslims across California, as well as scholarship on legal consciousness and lived religion, we document three interrelated stages of shari‘a consciousness: perceiving shari‘a and discriminatory depictions of it; educating oneself about shari‘a’s social and political relevance; and forming an intention for social action. Documenting these interrelated stages and theorizing the relationship between legal consciousness, religion, and inequality, this article reveals how religious identity formation is a significant precursor of legal mobilization and how nonstate normative orders provide interpretive frames for understanding human rights and social justice. Ultimately, legal consciousness may stem from sacred sensibilities and the desire to be a more ethical servant of God and not merely to be a more ethical subject of the state.

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“…In the context of increasing economic integration and social transformations, new laws and policies following market principles and the liberal model of development are often at odds with long‐standing modes of social regulation concerning what is right, appropriate, and just. From a legal consciousness perspective (Ewick and Silbey ; Albiston ; Boittin ; Halliday and Morgan ), which examines the intersection between law and other modes of normative orderings in shaping social perceptions and behavior, survival strategies widely observed among ordinary people represent defiance, if not resistance, to formal legality. People usually perceive state laws as inflexible, arbitrary, and ineffective in helping them resolve their social problems.…”

Section: Understanding Everyday Politics and Law In Authoritarian Regmentioning

confidence: 99%

Law and Precariousness in an Authoritarian State: The Case of Illegal House Construction in Vietnam

Nguyen

2020

Law & Policy

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While sociolegal research in authoritarian regimes has examined the cultural and regulatory factors accounting for why and how people bypass, manipulate, or resist the law, little attention has been paid to an important double-edged effect of law in legitimating and sanctioning subversive or illegal behavior. Through an examination of illegal house construction in peri-urban Vietnam, this study fills this gap by drawing attention to the relationship between law and precariousness. Precariousness influences individuals' perceptions of and behavior toward the law; at the same time, however, law creates and reinforces precariousness, a condition of vulnerability and uncertainty subject to the local state's discretion and compassion.

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I Fought the Law and the Law Won? Legal Consciousness and the Critical Imagination

Cited by 20 publications

References 2 publications

Coping with Precariousness: How Social Insurance Law Shapes Workers' Survival Strategies in Vietnam

Coping with Precariousness: How Social Insurance Law Shapes Workers' Survival Strategies in Vietnam

Shari‘a Consciousness: Law and Lived Religion among California Muslims

Law and Precariousness in an Authoritarian State: The Case of Illegal House Construction in Vietnam

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