No Vacancy: Professional-Client Relationships as Barriers to Jurisdictional Shifts

Abstract

Two core assumptions underpin studies of professional jurisdiction: first, that whenever a profession moves up in the system of professions, someone, a different profession or an occupation, will fill the vacancy left behind; second, that clients play a somewhat passive role in the process of jurisdictional change. Our study aims at exploring these assumptions, and we do so by looking at the question of jurisdictional shifts and the conditions that make them more or less likely to succeed. Our findings are based on an ethnography of an attempted jurisdictional shift, including hundreds of professional–client interactions. We show that clients play a central role in the process of jurisdictional shift, especially in the case of heteronomous professions, an increasingly important class of professions. By clarifying the conditions under which professional jurisdictions change, we contribute to the growing literature on the topic.