Socio-legal Contexts Research Articles

Opening the Gender Box: Legibility Dilemmas and Gender Data Collection on U.S. State Government Forms

US states collect sex and gender data on official government forms to understand, identify, classify, and surveil populations. These forms’ gender boxes—sets of questions about sex, gender, and gender identity paired with a wide variety of answer options—can mean the difference between legibility and erasure or between surveillance and privacy. They also create classic disclosure and legibility dilemmas that disproportionately burden transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and intersex individuals. And yet, the socio-legal forces determining the design of these gender boxes have been insufficiently studied. Documents obtained through public records requests and interviews with civil servants responsible for form design demonstrate that gender box design stems from the competing yet mostly inertial pressures that define the socio-legal contexts of street-level bureaucracy. In other words, gender boxes are products of the institutional, technological, political, and social contexts in which they are designed. Specifically, gender boxes look the way they do because they are subject to the effects of bureaucratic processes, social networks, expertise, intergovernmental dependence, norms, path dependencies, and technologies, with implications for research and advocacy.

Making Right to Housing Work: Learnings from YUVA’s Approach of Enabling the Right to Adequate Housing

Abstract This article presents a model of human rights practice in India, specifically focused on the right to adequate housing for marginalized groups. It details this through the praxis of a 40-year-old non-profit organization called Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA). The article presents the approach, rooted in the specific socio-legal contexts of Indian cities where YUVA works. Four key elements from YUVA’s model of work are elaborated: a) facilitating access to citizenship rights to enable individual claim-making; b) formation of people’s organizations towards collectivization; c) formation of wider city- and state-level alliances towards policy and advocacy shifts; d) strategic inputs to drive inclusion in urban plans. Although the insights embody the experience of a single organization, they offer several lessons for wider human rights practice with respect to realizing the right to housing in developing country contexts, especially in the Global South.

Medical students' perceptions of LGBTQ+ healthcare in Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) individuals have an increased scope of healthcare needs and face many barriers to accessing healthcare. However, LGBTQ+ healthcare education remains scarce, and students' understanding of LGBTQ+ healthcare remains largely uncharacterised. This study investigated the knowledge of and attitudes toward LGBTQ+ healthcare among medical students in Singapore and the United Kingdom (UK), two culturally different countries. Medical students in two medical schools, one in Singapore and the other in the UK, completed self-administered cross-sectional surveys using multiple-choice, Likert scale, and free-text questions to explore their ideas, concerns, and expectations about LGBTQ+ healthcare education within their medical curricula. From 330 responses, students' knowledge levels were moderate overall, with pronounced gaps in certain areas, including terminology, sexual health, and conversion therapy. Deficiencies in knowledge were significantly greater among students in Singapore compared to the UK (p < 0.001), whilst LGBTQ+ students and non-religious students had more positive knowledge and attitudes than students not identifying. At least 78% of students had positive attitudes towards LGBTQ+ individuals, but 84% had not received LGBTQ+-specific medical education. Although junior UK students were more satisfied with the adequacy of teaching by their medical school's incorporation of LGBTQ+ inclusive teaching in a newer curriculum, qualitative analyses suggested that students in both countries wanted to receive more training. Students further suggested improvements to the medical curriculum to meet their needs. Students in both schools lacked understanding of commonly-used terminology and topics such as sexual healthcare despite affirming attitudes towards LGBTQ+ healthcare. Although sociolegal contexts may affect students' perspectives, differences were less than thought, and students were equally keen to provide affirmative care to their patients. They emphasised a need for more formal teaching of LGBTQ+ healthcare professions to overcome healthcare disparities in these communities.

Anabolic-androgenic steroids: Considerations for forensic psychiatry, sports psychiatry, and the law

Anabolic-androgenic steroids: Considerations for forensic psychiatry, sports psychiatry, and the law

We are all (not) Anonymous: Individual- and country-level correlates of support for and opposition to hacktivism

Hacktivists oftentimes challenge or subvert existing power relations or structures and attempt to promote reform. How the public perceives occurrences of hacktivism can influence the direction and impact of operations, including their potential success. Public support can encompass person power, computational ability, resources and solidarity, among other things. This study examines socio-legal contexts in which an individual is embedded and personal perceptions as predictors for support for hacktivism. Using representative survey data from 23 countries ( n = 23,140), the study finds that more effective civic participation mechanisms and more positive views toward alternative actors and hacktivists’ utilitarianism motives were associated with heightened support. In contrast, greater trust in legal and state authorities promoted opposition. Effective justice was not associated with more support but was with less opposition for hacktivism. Implications for campaigns, social movements, and desistance of activity are discussed.

Manoeuvering through the multilayered jurisdictional policy patchwork: DACA recipients’ navigational capital in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan region

ABSTRACT During its almost-decade of existence, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has been a focal point of immigration policy debate. Liminally legal DACA recipients have endured a rollercoaster of lawsuits and court decisions, yet are simultaneously incorporating into local communities characterized by distinctive socio-legal contexts. Drawing from a longitudinal qualitative study of 30 DACA recipients in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan region, we argue that DACA recipients draw from their legal-spatial consciousness and local knowledge to forge navigational capital that allows them to adeptly manoeuver between different jurisdictions. Over time, they deploy this navigational capital to strategically access distinct yet interconnected educational, health care, housing, and employment sectors and expand their spatial mobility, underscoring their capacity for adaptation and resilience. As forms of collective knowledge, their navigational capital reverberates through their social networks as they broker on-the-ground forms of inclusion for themselves and their families and communities within these socio-legal contexts.

La enseñanza de lenguas originarias en las Facultades de Derecho en un país multicultural y plurilingüe como el Perú

Due to the lack of integration of Peru’s population for ethnic, social, demographic, and political reasons, the levels of violence and social exclusion have not been related to the need of training professionals in multicultural values. This need has only been addressed in the school context, yet the creation of bilingual and intercultural universities has also contributed positively. However, this may only lead to partial processes of development and population integration. Therefore, a proposal is made for training professionals, especially lawyers, to ensure a much more productive social integration process. Thus, the particular socio-legal contexts could be better understood, leading to a better protection of the rights of indigenous populations, especially in the judicial field.

Representing victims and offenders in contemporary performance: the ideal and the complex in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

ABSTRACT This article uses the criminological frameworks of ideal and complex victims to explore the Donmar Warehouse’s 2018 production of Measure for Measure that grounded the play in references to the Me Too movement. This production staged two versions of the play in one performance, including regendering and role-switching of the central antagonists, which drew attention to the gender dynamics of victimization and offence. While the traditional Isabella was shown to be a nigh perfect ideal victim, when she assumed the offender’s role and victimized Angelo, no neat reversal of power roles was possible. A framework that allows for more complex understandings of victims and offenders is necessary to read this version and to apprehend these issues in real life contexts. This article argues that representations of victims and offenders in theatrical performance have the power to affect understandings of victimization in broader socio-legal contexts and therefore deserve close analysis.

RIGHTS TO OIL THEFT AND ILLEGAL REFINERY IN NIGERIA

The reactions of the ethnic communities which have morphed into violent militant groups and ganglands in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria to State and industry control of land and mineral resources require a very close study. A comparative analysis of the current situation in Nigeria with what is obtained in the early days of the European civilization when the challenges of governance and economic crimes were emerging from the womb of the industrial revolution is equally of importance. If sovereignty resides ultimately with the people and the State governs with the consent of the citizens and the ultimate responsibility of the State and business is the welfare of the citizens, a fundamental breach of the social contract leaves the people with the right not only to abolish the State but to sabotage business in social banditry. This paper tries to apply the general principles of the theories of social banditry and social contract to the phenomenon of oil theft and illegal refineries in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. It employs the comparative, historical and analytical methodology in presentation while relying on secondary materials and doctrinal research method. It argues that the crimes of oil theft and illegal refineries have arisen from the lack of the development of the Niger Delta by both the State and the multinational oil companies and that they are an expression of the rights to resource control by indigenous communities after 50 years of State and industry control of same have failed to yield development on the ticket of the United Nation’s Resolution 1803 of 1962 guaranteeing national sovereignty over natural resources. It finds that they fall within Hobsbawm’s social banditry thesis and that the basic conditions for the abolition of the State under the social contract thesis have been largely met by the economic and socio-legal contexts prevailing in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

‘I take it to relax… and chill’: perspectives on cannabis use from marginalized Nigerian young adults

Background Current research on drug use emphasizes harms and often neglects its pleasures and benefits. This one-sided view has supported policies that criminalize personal drug use. This study explores nuanced understandings of cannabis use from the perspectives of marginalized users in Nigeria. Methods This study is based on qualitative research conducted with street-involved young adults (n = 97) recruited through time-location sampling in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria. Data were collected through in-depth, individual interviews, transcribed, coded and analyzed thematically. Results Cannabis offered corporeal and social pleasures, which were shaped by the socio-spatial context of use. It was also used in marginalized ways to relieve social stress, cope with trauma, enable daily functioning, and everyday survival struggle. This encouraged heavy use, which produced health harms including dependence as well as physical and mental health problems. Social and legal harms were of more concern to the participants than health ones. Unlawful policing practices, including physical abuses and financial extortion, exacerbated the health and social harms of structural violence they experience. Conclusions Cannabis use is a more nuanced practice than is captured in the dominant medico-legal discourse. Harms owe more to the socio-legal contexts of use than to the drug’s pharmacology. Reducing harms requires the provision of healthcare services and structural interventions, not criminalizing a population already situated on the margins of a resource-poor society.

Socio-Legal Studies in Germany and the UK: Theory and Methods

AbstractThis Special Issue considers the situated and contextualized development of socio-legal, or law and society, scholarship within two materially different legal and academic cultures, namely Germany and the United Kingdom, with a view to achieving a better understanding of why and how such differences in understanding and practice have arisen. The contributions are grouped into three themes. The first reflects upon the influence of institutional contexts and scholarly traditions in terms of the development of those approaches that come under the banner of socio-legal studies. The second features contributions that adopt a comparative perspective in terms of selected areas of law, pointing to notably different approaches taken in Germany and the UK, and considering the development of these respective situations. The third looks at the key contemporary trends, theoretical applications, and methodological approaches taken within both countries’ socio-legal academic contexts.

From Grave Robbing to Pastured Pigs: Intratextual References and Legal Thinking in Lombard Law-Books, ca. 1050-1125

A seemingly peculiar gloss can be found in two manuscripts of the Lombard laws, each produced around the turn of the twelfth century, stating that King Grimwald’s emendation of the laws on grave robbing (Grimwald, no. 3, issued in 668 ce) should be read in light of a later law of King Liutprand’s regarding the pasturing of pigs in another person’s defended forest (Liutprand, no. 150, issued in 735 ce). I take a manuscript-led perspective to analyse the development of this gloss, primarily focusing on five manuscripts of a variant of the laws edited in the modern day as the Liber Papiensis and dating from the eleventh to early twelfth centuries, but also with reference also to late, comparable instances in some of the twelfth-century manuscripts of the Lombarda variant of the laws. I explore the development of variants of this gloss through its association first with King Rothari’s law issued in 643 ce on the despoliation of corpses found in or by a river, where the gloss is first attested in two manuscripts of the third quarter of the eleventh century. I then turn to the transfer of the gloss to Rothari’s law on grave robbing, in the late eleventh-century manuscripts, and then its further transfer to the law of Grimwald on grave robbing and other crimes when committed by enslaved people, at the turn of the twelfth century. I consider the production and development of the gloss in manuscript contexts and in relation to the centers and peripheries of Lombardist legal studies. Overall, I argue that the gloss served to provide greater granularity in the way that the despoilation of corpses might be understood in socio-legal contexts, and to position graverobbing as comparable to other forms of theft as framed within the laws and legal practice.

DACA AND THE DIFFERENTIATED LANDSCAPE FOR COLLEGE ACCESS: EXPERIENCES FROM A NEW DESTINATION STATE

ABSTRACT The differentiated legal landscape that undocumented students face varies considerably across the United States. This study articulates the multiscalar and socio-legal contexts that frame the limitations and opportunities for undocumented youth accessing higher education in a new destination state. The Virginia experience as a southern and new immigrant destination is instructive. Virginia is the only southern state that offers in-state tuition for DACA holders, and then expanded tuition equity to all undocumented youth who graduate from high school in the state. Through surveys, a focus group, and coordination with a not-for-profit organization, we were able to survey 117 students, the majority of whom have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). We conclude that local and state-wide actors, institutions, and networks exist in Virginia that are critical to understanding the necessary pathways for undocumented youth to obtain higher education. Yet the ability of these students to remain in the US as skilled workers and/or college students is currently threatened at the federal level, especially with efforts to eliminate DACA.

Property without Prosperity: Subjective Valuation, Financial Citizenship, and Negotiating Moral Personhood among Manufactured Homeowners

AbstractAlthough an estimated twenty‐two million Americans occupy manufactured homes (MHs), less than one‐quarter of MH owners title their homes as real estate. Instead, most title their homes as personal property, which offers fewer legal protections against sudden eviction or unit repossession. Drawing from five years of anthropological research conducted within urban MH Communities (MHCs) in Lincoln (Nebraska) and Boulder (Colorado), this article details the many complicating factors MH owners in land‐lease MHCs consider before deciding to occupy depreciating assets titled as “chattel.” MH owners in Lincoln, for example, tend to emphasize the cost‐saving features of their manufactured homes, in particular the lower tax rate and maintenance costs. By contrast, Boulder MH owners typically describe their homes as investments, and resist efforts to restrict or limit (mobile) home sales even when located in land‐lease MHCs. Together, these case studies illustrate differing perspectives, motivations, and sociolegal contexts in which MHC owners claim respectability as well as citizens’ rights through “landless” homeownership.

Contested Authorities over Life Politics

Abstract Conflicts between religious and secular discourses, norms, actors, and institutions are differently shaped across the Middle East and Europe in accordance with their specific socio-legal contexts. While current scholarship has often studied this tension by focusing on religious rituals, the authors shed new light on the way religion and secularity shape the everyday making of life politics by way of a three-country comparison of abortion debates in Germany, Turkey, and Israel. Through face-to-face interviews with stakeholders involved in interpreting secular abortion law, the authors analyze how social actors in three predominantly monotheistic countries and socio-political circumstances construe secular abortion laws differently in practice. The authors show that, contrary to common belief, contestations over abortion do not neatly divide between religious and secular authority, but they create gray zones of negotiation. Articulated through specific historical, political, and religious circumstances, such gray zones involve everyday decisions on human authority in determining abortion practices and differing understandings of women’s bodies.

Housing in crisis: A qualitative study of the socio-legal contexts of residential evictions in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

BackgroundPeople who use drugs (PWUD) commonly experience housing vulnerability due to the intersection of drug laws, housing policies, gentrification, and social marginalization. Housing vulnerability produces social suffering amongst PWUD and is linked to health and social harms. In Vancouver, Canada, the rapid gentrification of the Downtown Eastside – a low-income inner-city neighbourhood – and the lack of affordable housing has led to residential evictions emerging as a key community concern. This study sought to understand the policies and practices that produced evictions among PWUD, situating vulnerabilities to evictions within the context of wider structural vulnerability of PWUD. MethodsBetween June 2015 and March 2016, baseline and 3–6 month follow-up qualitative interviews were conducted with recently evicted (past 60 days) PWUD in the Downtown Eastside. Participants were recruited by Peer Research Assistants. Baseline interviews (n = 56) focused on causes and socio-legal contexts of evictions, with follow-up interviews (n = 41) focusing on longer-term impacts. Interviews were analyzed thematically and interpreted by drawing on the concept of structural vulnerability. ResultsMost participants were evicted unlawfully, unfairly, and into homelessness. Participants were rendered structurally vulnerable to unlawful evictions by the shortcomings of existing residential tenancy laws and current dispute mechanisms. Residents of non-profit buildings, for whom it was unclear if provincial residential protections apply, found their housing security further undermined through the denial of rights extended to privately-housed tenants. Attempts to assert tenant rights further increased participants’ vulnerability to eviction through landlord retaliation and targeting. ConclusionFindings demonstrate the inadequacy of existing housing policies and tenancy supports to account for the structural vulnerability of PWUD and their role in driving harms. Policy reforms are needed to address unlawful evictions and increase tenancy security, and must be accompanied by low-barrier interventions to more fully address this key driver of social suffering among PWUD.

Counter-Limits Beyond Europe? The Latin American Calvo Doctrine from a Comparative Law Perspective

Adopting a functional approach, the article compares European ‘constitutional disobedience’ doctrines and the Calvo doctrine. This latter, elaborated to counteract interventions of foreign powers and positivized in several Latin-American constitutions, has been re-discovered as a counter-hegemonic instrument against sources of international economic law based on neo-liberal ideology. Positive law and judicial practice show that, while today both the European and Calvo doctrines protect the axiological identity of domestic orders against ‘outer’ legal systems influenced by utilitarian rationalities, their implementation and efficacy largely diverge, due to their different socio-legal contexts. The article finally outlines the elements of a “general” constitutional disobedience doctrine, which could be an immanent principle of constitutional orders.

Intimate Partner Violence: An Overview of the Existing Theories, Conceptual Frameworks, and Definitions

Background: Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), also known as domestic violence, spousal abuse, and relationship violence, among other names, is becoming a widely recognized social and public health problem. Theory and practice suggest it is vital that the issue be addressed comprehensively in both the healthcare and socio-legal contexts. The theoretical perspectives underlying inquiries into the nature and etiology of the IPV phenomenon are of fundamental importance in promoting our understanding of how to prevent, reduce, or eliminate the problem. In order to integrate various aspects of knowledge about the phenomenon, it is important to consider and evaluate the approaches to IPV currently prevalent in the field. Objectives: The present article aims to provide a critical overview of the existing theories, methodological frameworks, typologies, and definitions of Intimate Partner Violence. Design: The present paper reviews the international literature on the conceptual frameworks and definitions of IPV. First, it draws on the conceptual frameworks of violence; it then reviews relevant theories and definitions of IPV considered from sociocultural, individual, and integrative perspectives. The disparities, limitations, and explanatory powers of these theories, as well as their clinical and research applications, are discussed in an attempt to bring more clarity into the current state of understanding in the field. Results and Conclusions: Our review suggests that there is no universally accepted definition of IPV, nor a conceptual framework that would encompass the complexity of the phenomenon. Some of the theoretical frameworks for studying IPV appear to provide potential advantages over others, but their empirical viability has yet to be determined. We argue that, due to the complex multifaceted nature of IPV, a narrow theoretical stance might exclude a variety of exploratory factors and limit understanding of the phenomenon.

Sex Trafficking and the State: Applying Domestic Abuse Interventions to Serve Victims of Sex Trafficking

Advocacy and scholarship addressing sex trafficking as a human rights issue has become a transnational effort, but there has been less attention to sub-national efficacy. Through analyzing progressive justice system responses to domestic violence in Duluth, Minnesota that have been adopted worldwide, this paper demonstrates how to effectively apply these local advances in order to address sex trafficking on a global scale. This paper makes a theoretical contribution to understanding the intersections between domestic abuse and sex trafficking. A key empirical finding is that a coordinated community response (including the justice system and women’s organizations) is crucial for advancing domestic abuse training, monitoring, and legislation—and this coordination can also be productively utilized for improving responsiveness to victims of sex trafficking across a diverse range of socio-legal and economic contexts.

Trafficking, Prostitution and the Law: A Critical Assessment of Measures to Reduce Demand for Commercial Sexual Exploitation

This research critically assesses legal measures to reduce demand for trafficked people for commercial sexual exploitation. The research hypothesis is that states can best meet their obligations to reduce demand for trafficked people by criminalising the buying of sexual services but not the selling. The research pays particular attention to the contrasting legislative approaches that have been implemented in Sweden (since 1999) and the Netherlands (since 2000). It offers a critical appraisal of the socio-legal contexts in which these measures have been developed and implemented, and assesses their social impact with specific reference to the demand for trafficked people. The research shows how human rights concepts of choice and equality can be distorted to promote or maintain policies that violate choice, equality and human rights. The research concludes that a failure to address the wider context of acute gender inequalities sustains legal approaches that do not meet minimum obligations in international or European law.