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African Law and Society Biotechnology, Bioethics and the Law
Civil Justice and Disputing Behavior
Conceptualizing and Measuring Justice
Critical Research on Race
and the LawThe Cultural Lives of Capital Punishment
Culture, Society, and Intellectual Property
International Socio-Legal Feminisms
Law and Public-Private Dichotomy
Lay Participation in Legal Systems
Legal Complex and Struggles for Political Liberalism
Collaborative Research Networks (CRNs) were originally developed, with the assistance of a grant from the National Science Foundation, at the 2000 Annual Meeting in Miami to facilitate international research collaboration in selected topics for presentation at the meeting in Budapest in July 2001.
After those meetings, some CRNs decided to continue and build on their success by expanding their network of scholars. Many new CRNs have since been developed and CRNs have become an significant and integral component in Annual Meetings. Many organize several thematic sessions for each Annual Meeting as well as use the occasion to hold business meetings.
A CRN Coordinator is appointed by the LSA President to coordinate existing CRNs and accept proposals for new ones.
Expression of Interest in a Particular CRN:
If you wish to participate actively in one of the CRNs you should identify yourself by sending an email to organizer (simply click on the organizer's name to email these recipients simultaneously). In the email message describe your research interest and how it might fit in the subject of the CRN.
Application to establish a New CRN
If you are interested in submitting an application to establish a new CRN, you should complete the CRN Application Form and send it directly to the CRN Coordinator, Doris Marie Provine, Arizona State University. Applications will be reviewed by the Coordinator and the CRN Advisory Committee.
(click on organizer's name to send an email)
Organizers: Jill Weinberg, Northwestern University & American Bar Foundation, USA, and Shannon Portillo, George Mason University, USA
Justice is normative, procedural, a frame, and an outcome and is the heart of sociolegal discourse. From studies of the criminal justice system, perceptions of justice, civil and social rights and responsibilities, and access to justice, the concept of “justice” emerges in multiple disciplines and research sites. However, notwithstanding the conceptual, normative, and empirical traditions that implicate justice, rarely is Justice as construct brought to the forefront of our intellectual projects. Furthermore, there are significant differences in the overall goals, vocabulary, methodological commitments and methods such that studying justice has been unsystematic. The goal of this CRN is to bring light to the study of Justice in and of itself. Specifically, this CRN discusses not only how justice is conceptualized, but also how scholars methodologically study a topic that pervades our work but is and often understated within scholarship. As importantly, this CRN is meant to attract scholars from both the U.S. and abroad who are interested in this notion of Justice, how it emerges within their scholarship, and how broader discussions can bring Justice to the forefront.
2. Citizenship and Immigration
Issues of citizenship and immigration are critical to understanding ways that individuals and groups are created and marginalized. Within this collaborative research network, “citizenship,” is defined broadly, to include legal status, membership rights, civic involvement, social participation, and linkages to structures that delimit, transcend, and/or deconstruct the nation-state. It is also important to understand the discourses and practices that implicitly or explicitly define citizenship in particular contexts. Thus, race, gender, national origin, religion, ethnicity, social class and other markers of membership or exclusion may subtly or violently shape the claiming or attribution of citizenship in practice. Moreover, globalizing and transnational processes may reshape both citizenship and exclusion, positioning individuals and groups within and outside of multiple legal orders. Immigration is clearly one such process, and, given the war on terrorism and the restructuring of immigration in the United States and the sharpening of inequality internationally, it is crucial to examine how movements, non-movements, rights, and statuses are being distributed by nation-states and, sometimes, other entities.Organizers: Leila Kawar, Bates College, USA, Jeff Handmaker, Institute for Social Studies, The Netherlands, Doris Marie Provine, Arizona State University, USA
Cause lawyers challenge mainstream representations of professionalism by taking sides in political and social conflicts. In so doing, cause lawyers become advocates not only, or primarily, for their clients but for causes with which the clients? cases are associated--and with which the lawyer identifies. Research possibilities include but are not limited to examinations of the activities of cause lawyers, the role of cause lawyers in divided societies, the connections of cause lawyers to social movements, the impact of their work on state processes, and transnational networks. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Cause Lawyering Project has organized international and interdisciplinary research teams that have produced two edited volumes. The collaborative research network is an opportunity to extend the geographic and cultural reach of the cause lawyering project; to generate new research, advance theorization of cause lawyering, test existing propositions and uncover new ones--all from a broader base than the current project.Organizer: Austin Sarat, Amherst College, USA
4. Lay Participation in Legal Systems
Organizers: Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovich, Michigan State University, USA, Valerie Hans, Cornell University, USA, and Mary Rose, University of Texas, USA
The purpose of this CRN is to bring together scholars working on different forms of lay participation in legal decision making. The legal systems of many countries incorporate laypersons in some decision-making capacity, including lay judges or assessors, mixed tribunals of law-trained and lay judges, and the jury.
Lay participation in the justice system has been justified on multiple grounds. It is said to improve decision making, to reduce the impact of biased or corrupt judges, to keep the system responsive to changing community values, to better represent the diversity of citizen experiences and perspectives, and to enhance the legitimacy of the system. Lay involvement is strongly criticized on multiple grounds as well, including charges that lay participants are incompetent or biased decision makers, lack crucial knowledge of law, or ignore the law. Scholars have also questioned whether lay participation has any real impact on legal system outcomes or whether it is serves only a legitimacy function.
This CRN will help facilitate the exchange of research findings and comparative research about lay involvement in legal decision making. What are the strengths and drawbacks of different forms of lay participation as practiced in different countries? How do a country's historical and contextual factors shape the forms of lay participation? To what extent does lay participation fulfill its multiple functions?
5. Regulatory Governance
The CRN on Regulatory Governance focuses on the study of regulatory instruments, institutions, and actors. The network is concerned with how law interacts with economic activity and with the challenges that emerging social trends, such as privatization and globalization, pose for regulatory and administrative institutions. It examines how traditional as well as emerging regulatory instruments operate in theory and in practice, including approaches such as self-regulation, covenants, management systems, and market-based regulation. It also explores the behavior, culture, and design of regulatory institutions and actors, with particular attention to the varied demands of accountability, rationality, and legitimacy. The network connects researchers focusing on regulation in domestic and international settings and across a variety of regulatory domains. To sign-up for the Regulatory Governance CRN listserv, send a subscribe message to the reggov list here.Organizers: Vibeke Lehmann Nielsen, Aarhus University, Denmark, and Christine Parker, University of Melbourne, Australia
6. Public Opinion and the Courts
Organizers: Cheri Wilson, Independent Scholar, USA, and Kristina Galstyan, Yerevan State University and the European Regional Academy in the Caucasus, Armenia
This CRN is aimed at studying public opinion of justice systems in different countries, legal traditions, different regimes and in historical context. It also tackles how society influences on legal practice and law and how legal practice influences on the society. It examines the public opinion of courts, the people's credibility in judges, prosecutors as an ingredient of democracy and rule of law. It has a strong comparative angle: different countries and different regions face very different as well as very similar problems and ways of addressing these. Activities aimed at raising the public trust in courts are often part of law reform projects. Therefore the CRN addresses the issues of rule of law reforms in a comparative light and attempts to give recommendations.
7. Feminist Legal Theory
Organizers: Maxine Eichner. University of North Carolina School of Law, USA, and Clare Huntington, University of Colorado School of Law, USA
At this point in time, Law and Society’s CRN program has
designated CRNs for Gender and Judging and Integrating Gender into the Legal
Curriculum, but no CRN that focuses broadly on issues of feminist legal theory.
Yet feminist concerns implicate a wide variety of subjects in the legal academy
and in other areas of the academy, and there is a broad array of scholars
interested in this topic. Although many scholars would benefit from more
discussions on feminist issues, the fact that feminist theory cuts across so
many fields hampers conversation: many of us, particularly those newer to the
academy, do not know one another or the work that is being done on these issues
in other fields. A number of us regularly attend the Law and Society Annual
Meeting, but simply arrange panels within our own fields and subfields, and the
discussion at these panels is more insular than it might otherwise be.
Designating a CRN on feminist theory could help change this dynamic. It would
allow members to organize panels across fields and encourage more
cross-pollination on feminist issues than has been occurring. It would also
encourage more research and mentoring relationships. Despite calls for a “break”
from feminist legal theory, and cognizant of the well-deserved criticism that
some feminist legal theory has essentialized the feminine and excludes many
voices, feminism continues to be an energizing force for scholars within law and
across other disciplines. This CRN seeks to foster a community of scholars with
a shared interest in gender and equality as related to race, class, sexual
orientation, disability, and much more. To build our community, the CRN will
operate as a working group, with scholars presenting works-in-progress on varied
topics related to feminist legal theory. We will not set themes before the
meetings but instead will shape the panels around the work of the participants,
facilitating an organic discussion that is not constrained by specific topic or
inquiry. In addition, we hope to use an annual business meeting to strategize
about other ways feminist scholars could more profitably work together, and a
roundtable on works-newly-in-progress to further collaboration on existing
projects.
8. Labor Rights
Organizers: Marley Weiss, University of Maryland School of Law, USA, Ruben J. Garcia, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, School of Law, USA, and Ralf Rogowski, University of Warwick, UK
In a global economy, there is a need for new approaches to the age-old challenge of protecting workers' rights and improving labor standards. Globalization affects the nature of work and the character of the employment relationship around the world. Pressures on firms to improve competitiveness through restructuring workforces and production across national borders have led to increased challenges for nation-states. States in the North look for ways to preserve existing levels of employment and income support while those in the South struggle to simultaneously promote growth and investment and raise labor standards. To these ends, national laws may need to be revised, international norms developed, and transnational advocacy explored.
This network seeks to encourage research by sociolegal scholars on these issues and bring sociolegal scholars and experts on industrial relations together. We hope to foster work along two intersecting dimensions. First, what is the impact of changes in firms, production processes and global market forces on work, workforces, and worker's rights and conditions in the North and South? Second, how do existing legal institutions function and what kinds of new governance mechanisms are needed? We hope to explore the role of states, courts, unions, NGO's, existing international institutions such as the ILO, 'social clauses' in trade agreements, the World Bank and other IFI's, as well as industries and private firms through codes of conduct and otherwise.
10
Organizer: Herbert (Bert) Kritzer, University of Minnesota, USA
This CRN focuses on the empirical study of disputing behavior both within the context of civil justice systems and outside the formal justice system framework. The CRN has a broad focus that includes, but is not limited to, the following:
The CRN seeks to connect those in the Law and Society/Sociolegal Studies community with the segment of the growing Empirical Legal Studies community that focuses on civil justice issues.
The CRN maintains a listserve which can be used to disseminate information about research and funding opportunities, calls for papers, and conferences. To subscribe to the listserve, send a message to: listserv@lists.umn.edu The body of the message should contain the following: "subscribe lsacrn-cjdb" (no quotation marks).
11. The Cultural Lives of Capital Punishment
Organizer: Austin Sarat Amherst College, USA
The purpose of this CRN to invite inquiry into the cultural life of capital
punishment in democratic and non-democratic countries and in nations which
retain as well as those which have abolished capital punishment. The work of the
CRN is guided by the view that the impact of state killing is not limited to our
political and legal lives. It has a pervasive effect in constituting culture as
well.
Punishment, David Garland tells us, "helps shape the overarching culture and
contribute to the generation and regeneration of its terms." Punishment is a set
of signifying practices that "teaches, clarifies, dramatizes and authoritatively
enacts some of the most basic moral-political categories and distinctions which
help shape our symbolic universe." Punishment lives in culture through its
pedagogical effects. It teaches us how to think about categories like intention,
responsibility and injury, and it models the socially appropriate ways of
responding to injury done to us. Moreover, it exemplifies relations of power and
reminds us of the pervasiveness of vulnerability and pain.
And what is true of punishment in general is certainly true of those instances
in which the punishment is death. State killing is today an occasion for rich
symbolization, for the production of public images of evil or of an unruly
freedom whose only containment is in a state imposed death. This CRN will
explore the cultural lives of capital punishment and connect them to legal and
political controversies surrounding state killing.
12. Critical Research on Race and the Law
Organizers: Laura Gómez, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, and Osagie Obasogie, University of California, Hastings School of Law, USA
The CRN on Critical Research on Race and the Law is "critical" in at least
two different senses. The name suggests an urgency in terms of expanding the
socio-legal studies research agenda to more prominently include race and racial
inequality. The name also is meant to draw upon some of the most exciting work
in the legal academy over the past two decades under the Critical Race Theory
and LatCrit rubrics. Similarly, law and society scholars are drawing
increasingly upon studies of race and ethnicity from diverse disciplines that
incorporate cultural studies and/or critical theory. Scholars in history,
sociology, and anthropology (just to name some of the fields well-represented in
law and society) are doing innovative studies that center race, racial
inequality, and systems of racial classification of great interest to scholars
interested in law and legal institutions. We hope the CRN on Critical Research
on Race and the Law will serve as a space in which scholars interested in race
and the law can engage each others' research projects and more generally network
with each other. Such a space could be especially important, I think, for
younger scholars and/or scholars new to the organization.
13. African Law and Society
The research focus of this CRN is on African law and society. Open to all, this CRN aims to investigate the variety of levels and methods through which African law and society are constituted and change. Recent annual meetings of the LSA have demonstrated that the Law and Society Association’s full potential for scholarship by Africans or about African law and society has not been achieved. Likewise, African scholarship falling broadly within the law and society or socio-legal studies intellectual tradition has not been as prominent as could be the case. Working both within the LSA and Africa, this CRN aims to organize panels for LSA annual meetings in Chicago and beyond. The CRN also aims to promote and facilitate participation in African-located law and society scholarship initiatives. The CRN is also pursuing funding and holding an African Institute, based loosely on the model of the LSA’s Summer Institutes. While the CRN is African rather than South African, this CRN will (at least initially) both recognize and critique the role that South Africa plays in African law and society and in its scholarship.Organizers: Penny Andrews, City University of New York, USA, Mark Kende, Drake University, USA, Jonathan Klaaren, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
14. Culture, Society, and Intellectual Property
Organizers: William Gallagher, Golden Gate University, USA, and Shubha Ghosh, University at Wisconsin, USA
This CRN seeks to encourage interaction between scholars from diverse
disciplinary perspectives who focus on the legal, social, and cultural
dimensions of intellectual properties--including patents, copyrights,
trademarks, trade secrets, and rights of publicity. One goal of this CRN is to
encourage creatively eclectic approaches to the study of intellectual property
among law and society scholars who draw on traditional doctrinal and policy
analyses, historical analyses, cultural studies analyses, and empirical analyses
of intellectual property law in action. Intellectual properties, and the
processes of globalization of which they are a part, are an especially promising
and important area for collaborative research of the kind that law and society
scholars have long pioneered
15. British Colonial Legalities
Organizers: Wesley Pue, University of British Columbia, Canada, Jothie Rajah, University of California, Berkeley, USA, and Binyamin Blum, Stanford University, USA
This CRN brings together scholars working on law and society in former British colonies. The network welcomes those seeking to identify commonalities and complementarities of law, history, state practice and policy, as well as the many contemporary effects of colonial legalities. There is a growing thematic approach to sociolegal scholarship that cuts across jurisdictional boundaries in counteracting a narrowly area studies approach. The CRN hopes to further this effort by facilitating communication and scholarly initiatives between researchers in the swathe of former British colonies in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. In the immediate term, this means providing a forum through which scholars might organize British Colonial Legalities related panels for Law and Society meetings.
16. Language and Law
Organizers: Bethany K. Dumas, University of Tennessee, USA, Lawrence M. Solan, Brooklyn Law School, USA, and Peter M. Tiersma, Loyola Law School, USA
The purpose of this CRN is to formalize and expand the international network of scholars (linguists and others) who have organized and participated in sessions on language and law since 1990, when the first sessions on Language and Law were scheduled at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting. Such formalization is intended to provide a forum in which language scholars (linguists, interpreters, translators, and others) and legal scholars and lawyers can together contribute to a fuller understanding of the complex role of language in the judicial systems of the world. Our overall aim will be to focus broadly on the key role of language in judicial process at all levels.
17. Gender, Sexuality and Law
Organizers: Jill Weinberg, Northwestern University/American Bar Foundation, USA, and Aaron Smyth, University of California, Berkeley, USA
The interplay between the law, gender, and sexuality is a precarious one. On one hand, the law and legal decision-making are rooted in a tradition of predictability, uniformity, and rigidity. On the other hand, gender and sexuality identities are dynamic, non-discrete, and fluid. As gender and sexuality issues are increasingly resolved in legislatures and courts, the question of how to reconcile these competing motifs themselves are worthy of Law and Society scholarship. The purpose of this CRN is, thus, two-fold: first, to critically examine the law and its relationship to gender and sexual identities -- i.e., how the law constructs, constrains, and/or enables gender and sexual minorities at the municipal, state, and national level; and, second, to engage comparatively with international legal systems, both established and emergent, to shed new light on these constructs. Specifically, this network seeks to promote scholarship that looks at gender and sexual minorities as its own research question and not simply as a case study within the discipline (e.g., social movements, tax law, etc.). Using these critical and comparative lenses, not only would this collaborative space cast light on these understudied groups, but it also encourages discussions about broader Law and Society questions such the relationship between law and social change, issues of diversity and citizenship, and transnationalism.
18. Law and the Public-Private Dichotomy
Organizers: Brian Gran, Case Western Reserve University, USA
This CRN is devoted to studies of "law" and the public-private dichotomy.
Among its goals is a continuing debate over the role of legal institutions and
processes in shaping the public-private dichotomy for public policy and
institutions. This CRN draws on important historical and cross-national
scholarship with interdisciplinary bases. Scholars in anthropology, history,
law, political science, and sociology, as well as other disciplines, are
undertaking significant, innovative studies that demonstrate the
critical impact of "law" on how the public-private boundary is drawn. We hope
the CRN on Law and the Public-Private Dichotomy will serve as a forum where
scholars interested in how ?law? shapes public policy and institutions. This
CRN especially welcomes scholars new to the Law and Society Association,
especially younger scholars and international scholars.
19. Teaching in Law and Society
Organizers: Jillian Weiss, Ramapo College, USA, and Austin Sarat, Amherst College, USA
This CRN provides a forum for scholars located in a variety of institutional locations — from various disciplinary to interdisciplinary programs, from liberal arts colleges to research institutions — to engage the question of teaching Law and Society courses. The goals of this CRN are threefold: first, to provide a space where LSA members can engage in discussion and debate around the role of teaching in our professional lives; second, to provide opportunities for debate and deliberation of the Law and Society "canon." — that is, what exactly are we teaching in our Law and Society courses and what impact does this have on the boundaries of the field? and, third, this CRN — through sponsored conference panels and other forums — provides space for those teaching L&S course to trade syllabi, teaching tips, course materials, and other practical information on the "doing" of teaching. You can subscribe to the CRN 19 listserv by entering your email address in the box below and clicking the "join now" button.
20. The Legal Complex and Struggles for Political Liberalism
Organizers: Terry Halliday, American Bar Foundation, USA, Malcolm Feeley, University of California, Berkeley, USA, and Lucien Karpik, Ecole des Mines, Paris, France
Understanding the foundations of political liberalism has become one of most critical issues of the past fifteen years. In recent years a research agenda has developed to explore the relationship between political liberalism and the legal profession. In several historical instances research has shown that lawyers contributed to the emergence of political liberalism (i.e., constitution of the moderate state, civil society, core rights of civil citizenship) in western countries. This CRN extends this research agenda by exploring the conditions under which the legal complex (i.e., configurations of lawyers, judges, legal academics) will contribute to advances towards or retreats from political liberalism in mature democracies, new democracies and countries in transition. We invite scholars from all regions (e.g., Asia, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Europe) to join us in the development of empirically-based comparative and historical theories of the legal complex and the fortunes of political liberalism. We intend to hold sessions at the LSA annual meetings, workshops and conferences that lead to the publication of edited volumes that deal with particular regions or aspects of political liberalism. We particularly welcome scholars from outside the United States and from all disciplines that engage this problem. This CRN is organized jointly with the project on the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism, Working Group on Comparative Studies of Legal Professions, Research Committee on the Sociology of Law.
21. Law and Social Movements
This CRN brings together scholars interested in the complex relationship between law and social movements. Social movements use a wide variety of legal strategies – including litigation, lobbying, and administrative advocacy – in their programs for social change. Law, and particularly rights, provides movements with political opportunities and plays a role in the cultural life of a social movement. Law is a contested terrain for social movement struggles: movements rely on rights to frame their grievances, to generate and circulate collective identity, and to recruit and mobilize activists. On the other hand, law and legal strategies can exert a conservative influence on social movements, channeling protest and more radical forms of action into conventional political institutions. Scholars participating in this CRN are working on theoretical and empirical projects on movements throughout the world that explore these and many other issues emerging from social movements’ interactions with law and the legal system. Participants have several long-range goals. We hope to develop collaborative research and writing projects and to create opportunities for publication of CRN research, such as edited volumes and symposia in both law and society journals, as well as outlets in our home disciplines. We plan to share syllabi and other teaching resources for undergraduate and graduate classes on law and social movements. Finally, the CRN will provide opportunities for cross-generational and inter-disciplinary professionalization. Unfortunately, most sociologists do not read the work of McCann, Milner, and Olson. On the other hand, many Law and Society scholars seem unaware of the copious sociological research on social movements. Through the scholarly exchanges facilitated by the CRN, we can correct these oversights and produce richer studies that can inform the debates not just in Law and Society, but also in our home disciplines.Organizers: Scott Barclay, University at Albany, SUNY, USA, Lynn Jones, Northern Arizona University, USA, and Anna-Maria Marshall, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign, USA
22. South Asia
Organizers: Mitra Sharafi and Marc Galanter, University of Wisconsin School of Law, USA
The purpose of this CRN is to bring together scholars and lawyers working on aspects of law and society in South Asia. The network welcomes those working on social scientific and policy-oriented aspects of contemporary South Asian law as much as those specializing in historical, philosophical, and literary aspects of law. There is a growing "law in context" movement within India that is working to counteract the doctrinal bent of much Indian legal scholarship. The CRN hopes to further this effort by facilitating communication and scholarly initiatives between researchers in South Asia and those outside of it. We welcome suggestions (names with e-mail addresses, if possible) of people who may want to be receive information about this CRN.
23. International Human Rights
Organizers: Laura A. Dickinson, Arizona State University, and Sally Engle Merry, New York University, USA
This CRN seeks to bring to the field of international human rights law a more comprehensive discussion of empirical methodologies as well as to focus more attention, within the law and society movement, on international human rights. Although legal scholars are beginning to test the impact and efficacy of international human rights law, this work is still in its infancy and tends to be informed primarily by the methodologies of quantitative political science research. Accordingly, scholars in this field have not sufficiently embraced the broad range of empirical approaches to legal questions that is emblematic of the law and society movement. Meanwhile, law and society scholars—with some notable exceptions—have historically focused on domestic legal regimes and have therefore not sufficiently analyzed international law. Our first meeting will be held in Baltimore, with the aim of organizing a series of panels for the Berlin meeting as well as a training seminar in research methods. Ultimately, our goal is to spawn a series of conferences and publications, which might include not only independent and jointly-authored articles but also multiple, larger book projects.
24. Jurisprudence of Disasters: Law as Contributory, Law as Corrective
Organizers: Lloyd Burton, School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver; and Lisa Sun, School of Law, Brigham Young University. Website
How does law contribute to the makings of catastrophic disasters (e.g., weak
land use regulation, public subsidies encouraging the population of dangerous
places); and how it can facilitate or compel corrective measures in the realms
of mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery—whether such disasters are
naturally, accidentally, or deliberately caused? These questions provide the
thematic nexus for this network. It encourages application of perspectives and
concerns already familiar to law and society scholars, such as civil rights and
liberties as affected by disaster management, social and environmental justice,
private rights and regulatory authority, the well-being of special-needs
populations, equity and efficiency in resource allocation, voluntary versus
involuntary assumption of risk, and “soft law” versus “hard law” approaches to
protecting public health and safety. It also directly implicates topics such as
law and scientific uncertainty, reciprocal obligation and moral community, and
responses to climate change. This Network is likewise a forum for contact with
disaster scholars in other disciplines in the social, behavioral and natural
sciences, and engineering, whose research and practice influences and is
influenced by the law and legal institutions. Beyond academic circles, those
doing scholarly research on disaster law and policy in governmental
institutions, research institutes, and non-governmental organizations may find
affiliation with this network to be beneficial as well, and we invite you to
join us.
The impetus for organizing this CRN arose toward the end of an
invited-participant Workshop on Disasters and Sociolegal Studies, held July
20-22, 2011 at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Oñati,
Spain.
25. Transparency and Ethnography
Organizer: Jason Cross, University of Michigan, USA
Transparency is a central assumption and aspiration of liberal legalism,
informed decision-making, civil engagement, and critical analysis. What happens
when one of the key means and ends of legal response and
critique—transparency—no longer dismantles or even pauses its object? Can
transparency remain merely instrumental to legal practices or does it turn them
inside out? The purpose of this CRN is to ethnographically approach the
pragmatic and aesthetic possibilities of what might come after transparency and
its attendant liberal democratic assumptions. Rather than taking it as a
self-evident goal, the CRN aims to put transparency and ethnography in motion.
We approach transparency laterally as an artifact that denotes vision as well as
time, space, persons, and relations. When approached as a fiction with powerful
effects in various registers, transparency is open to categorical redefinition
where objects and subjects swap positions, aesthetic gestures come to be ethical
ones, and the material is always already a semiotic domain.
27. Prisons and Prisoners
Organizers: Mary Rogan, Dublin Institute of Technology, IRELAND, and Ben Fleury-Steiner, University of Delaware, USA
The Prisons and Prisoners CRN will bring together scholars from a wide array of fields who are engaged in studying the psychological, social, political, economic, and public health consequences of incarceration. Our aim is to shed light on the traditionally closed environment that is the modern prison; to explore how the “politics of crime” play out on the ground, in different prisons and across different national contexts; to better understand the ramifications of the incarceration experience on individual lives; and to examine the myriad ways in which incarceration affects families, communities and societies. Further, the CRN seeks to foster innovative and rigorous scholarship, to bring new and more established scholars together, and to support cross-disciplinary and cross-national discussion and debate on this important substantive area.
28. Realist and Empirical Legal Methods
Organizer: Elizabeth Mertz, University of Wisconsin and American Bar Foundation, USA
For many decades, the law-and-society movement has served as a meeting point for scholars interested in empirical research on law. This CRN focuses explicitly on the process of translation between law and social science. Building from existing and future research, we hope to develop new perspectives on this translation process, perspectives which we then plan to put to use and refine – as well as to disseminate through publications, panels, working groups, and conferences. Bringing together scholars interested in “realist” and “empirical” approaches to law, we will work to build an integrative set of research methods for sociolegal studies. We begin with several specific foci: (1) RIGOROUS TRANSLATION OF LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE: First, we do not assume that scholars trained in social science and scholars trained in law can instantly understand each other’s fields with any depth. Rather, we ask what conditions are necessary in order to bridge very different disciplinary traditions. This requires systematic attention to the translation process itself, and to the institutional settings within which translation occurs. (2) INTERDISCIPLINARY METHODS: Second, scholars involved in this CRN work with the full range of available empirical methods – qualitative and quantitative, ethnographic and statistical. Our goal is to encourage a truly interdisciplinary approach, which examines law from the “ground up” as well as the “top down.” Panels sponsored by this CRN at LSA meetings focus largely on research methods, and on translating social science in legal settings (including law school classrooms). We also work to develop conferences, networks, and small working groups which will provide social scientists and law professors with more extended and intensive opportunities to bridge disciplinary divides. More extensive discussion of these ideas, and also links to further resources can be found at www.newlegalrealism.org – and also see relevant discussions on www.elsblog.org.
29. Biotechnology, Bioethics and the Law
Organizer: Michele Goodwin, University of Minnesota Law School and Medical School, USA
This network studies the emerging field of biotechnology as an interdisciplinary discourse. This CRN focuses on multiple disciplinary approaches to bioethical and biotechnological disputes, including law and economics, feminist jurisprudence, legal realism, and critical legal studies. This network is a forum that attempts to bridge the gap between biotechnology and its sister fields, bioethics and intellectual property, rather than casting them in disciplinary isolation. This network serves as a forum to expand the narrow framework of traditional biotech discourse to include an examination of diverse issues underrepresented in conventional scholarship, including bio-piracy, genetic determinism, human commoditization, transhumanism, genetic property, public health, and tort, property, and contract issues in the body. As well, this network adds race, gender, socioeconomics and public policy to the discourse of biotechnology and bioethics. Research and scholarship from scholars in this network will contribute to the foundational blocks in new biotechnology law. The Biotechnology, Bioethics, and The Law CRN serves as a forum for researchers, scholars, and students to contemplate issues where law, science, society, and medicine meet.
30.
31. Law, Society and Taxation
Organizer: Neil H. Buchanan, George Washington University Law School, USA
This CRN provides a forum for scholars who are interested in the effects on society of the taxing and spending policies adopted at all levels of government (international, national, state, and local). Subjects of inquiry involve any aspect of government policy with respect to taxing or spending, including distributional effects of government programs, theoretical issues of equity and justice, comparative and international issues, and all other aspects of fiscal policy. Participants are encouraged to apply multi- and interdisciplinary approaches to questions across the range of tax-related scholarship: issues of social and economic inequality, international competition and coordination, comparative aspects of tax law, family issues, sexual orientation and tax law, and so on.
32. Gender and Judging
Organizers: Sally J. Kenney, Tulane University, USA, and Ulrike Schultz, Fernuniversität, Hagen, Germany
33. East Asian Law and Society
Organizers: Setsuo Miyazawa, Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan, Kay-Wah Chan, Macquarie University, Australia, and Yoshitaka Wada, Waseda University, Japan
Law and society in East Asia are currently in the midst of rapid and fundamental changes, providing fertile grounds for socio-legal research. Using the momentum provided by these changes, this CRN is formed to provide a forum for promoting research on East Asian law and society, and disseminating its findings to a wider community of socio-legal scholarship. Both Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia are covered under this CRN. It welcomes scholars researching on East Asia, and others wishing to enrich their research and theories with findings from the region. Sessions organized by the CRN welcome papers on any aspects or issues of law and society in East Asia. This CRN is also envisioned to grow into an institutional base for the holding of regional LSA meetings on a regular basis in the near future. CRN-EALS Website. Call for 2011 conference (Seoul, South Korea 30 Sept - Oct 1)
34. Law and Indigeneity
Organizers: Eve Darian-Smith, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, Nicholas Buchanan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and Chris Andersen, University of Alberta, Canada
The study of law and indigeneity is international and global in scope, and this CRN seeks to promote much-needed interaction and comparative inquiry between scholars based around the world. We aim to provide a forum that comparatively examines the similarities and differences between colonial/postcolonial/neo-imperial nations with respect to native peoples. Our hope is to expand the discussion of these beyond the discourses of resistance and human rights, to foreground other ways that indigenous peoples engage with the law. By doing so, we hope to promote inquiry into the complex legal landscape that involves multiple layers and meanings of what constitute law for indigenous peoples in the first instance. Alongside issues of legal pluralism, we aim to stress the multiple sites of knowledge production that inform issues of indigeneity and that contextualize the engagement of native peoples with formal and informal legal institutions. The CRN is founded on the belief that a full understanding of what it means to be indigenous is impossible without taking the legal into direct consideration. Nor can we fully understand legality in non-indigenous societies without acknowledging the law’s ever-present connections to native peoples.
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35. Legal Geography
Organizers: David Delaney. Amherst College, USA, and Sandy Kedar, Haifi University Law School, Israel
For more than a decade legal geography (broadly understood) has been described as an emerging field of inquiry within socio-legal scholarship. While interest in the significance of spatiality, place and landscape to the workings of the legal is increasing in quantity and sophistication there are few avenues for promoting productive exchanges among scholars scattered across a number of disciplines. The principal objective of the Legal Geography CRN is to facilitate communication and collaboration among interested scholars. The focus of our endeavor is the relationship between those topics conventionally investigated by geographers (space, spatiality, place, borders, mobility, circulation, landscape and so on) and those of interest to socio-legal scholars. However, we wish to promote transdisciplinary perspectives on these relationships and welcome the participation of anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, historians, philosophers, workers in cultural studies, environmental studies and so on. The CRN will also be dedicated to the principle of theoretical and normative plurality.
36. Transnational Legal Orders
Organizer: Gregory Shaffer, University of Minnesota School of Law, USA
This CRN will address the processes through which international organizations and transnational networks create law and legal norms, and in the process, shape national and international social, political and economic fields. It will examine these processes at the international and transnational levels, their articulation with national legal processes, and their impact on relations of economic, social and political power. International organizations, trans-governmental networks, and the increasing involvement of non-state actors at the global level, including corporations and non-governmental organizations, affect and govern public and private interactions more extensively and intensively than ever before. The CRN will examine the role of actors and mechanisms in the creation of transnational law, norms and legal orders and their impact on domestic law and practice through processes of transformation and resistance.
37. Private Practice Lawyers
Organizers: William Henderson, Ken Dau-Schmidt, Lauren Robel, Indiana University School of Law--Bloomington, USA, and Robert Nelson, American Bar Foundation, USA
Over the last three decades, the proportion of legal work performed for the corporate legal sector has grown dramatically. This shift in employment patterns reflects a large and understudied sea change in the legal profession. The Collaborative Research Network studies the changing economics and sociology of private sector lawyers and law firms. Topics of interests to our researchers include: changing professional norms; labor markets; law firm management; the balance of power among interest groups (e.g., AAJ [formerly ALTA] versus the U.S. Chamber of Commerce); access to justice for the poor and middle class; the role of elite lawyers in the democratic process; the relationship between firm size, working conditions, professional autonomy, and lawyer satisfaction; and the viability of current models of self regulation. In addition to advancing scholarship on the legal profession, this CRN has two subsidiary goals: (1) creating and sharing of qualitative and quantitative data on private practice lawyers; (2) exploring the potential of socio-legal studies as teaching materials within law schools.
38. International Socio-Legal Feminisms
Organizers: Margaret Denike, Dalhousie University, Canada, Asa Gunnarsson, Umea University, Sweden, and Ann Mumford, Queen Mary Law School, University of London, England
This collaborative research network seeks to accelerate the exchange of interdisciplinary feminist research on domestic, transnational, and international governance concerning gendered patterns of social and economic issues affecting women Although many policy issues affecting women are embedded in specific domestic social contexts and legal regimes,gendered patterns of power are remain deeply entrenched over time and place. Feminist collaborations across national and political boundaries can quickly expand understanding of fundamental problems, options for strategic transformations, and impact assessment. The aim is to promote cross-national and multi-discipinary reflective knowledge about the way women’s and men’s opportunities are shaped by society, including the gendered conditions associated with family structures, labour markets, governance structures, and other institutions. The aim is also to over-bridge the reality gap in feminist theory by placing different methods of research in the interactive context of theory and practise over time.
39. Colonization and Law
Organizers: John Fellipe Acevedo, University of Chicago, USA, Kalyani Ramnath, University of Bangalore, India
The implementation of European colonial projects altered political regimes around the world, spreading its peculiar versions of the concepts of governance, justice, rights, and law. These ideas and institutions have continued in postcolonial worlds, and continue to affect their legal practice. However, European legal régimes were not accepted blindly or completely. Instead the process of colonization led to negotiations – both political and outside of those more ‘formal’ settings - between the existing population and the European rulers. The Law and Colonization CRN proposes to examine legal formation in colonial states and the impact of those formations on the law of both the colonized and colonizers. Simultaneously, the CRN will also critically analyze arguments from colonial continuity. In examining the extent and nature of colonial influence on legal institutions and legal culture, are we unduly privileging the colonial encounter? It is our belief that a cross disciplinary approach combining theoretical and empirical strengths of various disciplines will create a fuller understanding of the interaction between law and colonial processes. For more information please contact the CRN organizers or visit our website at http://colonizationandlaw.com
If you are interested in submitting an application to establish a new CRN, you should complete the CRN Application Form and send it directly to the CRN Coordinator, Doris Marie Provine, New York University. Applications will be reviewed by the Coordinator and the CRN Advisory Committee. If the CRN is approved it will be added to this list for solicitation of members.