Law and Community in Three American Towns

Law and Community in Three American Towns
Author: Carol J. Greenhouse
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2018-07-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1501725017

Many commentators on the contemporary United States believe that current rates of litigation are a sign of decay in the nation’s social fabric. Law and Community in Three American Towns explores how ordinary people in three towns—located in New England, the Midwest, and the South—view the law, courts, litigants, and social order. Carol J. Greenhouse, Barbara Yngvesson, and David M. Engel analyze attitudes toward law and law users as a way of commentating on major American myths and ongoing changes in American society. They show that residents of "Riverside," "Sander County," and "Hopewell" interpret litigation as a sign of social decline, but they also value law as a symbol of their local way of life. The book focuses on this ambivalence and relates it to the deeply-felt tensions express between "community" and "rights" as rival bases of society. The authors, two anthropologists and a lawyer, each with an understanding of a particular region, were surprised to discover that such different locales produced parallel findings. They undertook a comparative project to find out why ambivalence toward the law and law use should be such a common refrain. The answer, they believe, turns out to be less a matter of local traditions than of the ways that people perceive the patterns of their lives as being vulnerable to external forces of change.

Law and Community in Three American Towns

Law and Community in Three American Towns
Author: Carol J. Greenhouse
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1994
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780801481697

Carol J. Greenhouse, Barbara Yngvesson, and David M. Engel analyze attitudes toward the law as a way of commentating on major American myths and ongoing changes in American society.

Law and Society Today

Law and Society Today
Author: Riaz Tejani
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2019-08-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520968409

Law and Society Today is a problem-oriented survey of sociolegal studies, with a unique emphasis on recent historical and political developments. Whereas other texts focus heavily on criminal procedure, this book foregrounds the significant changes of the 2000s and 2010s, including neoliberalism, migration, multiculturalism, and the large influence of law and economics in law teaching, policy debates, and judicial decision-making. Each chapter presents key concepts, real-world applications, and hypothetical problems that allow students to test comprehension. With an integrated approach to theory and practice and written in an accessible tone, this text helps students recognize the dynamic forces that shape the way the law is constructed and implemented, particularly how law drives social inequality.

Communities of Practice and Ethnographic Fieldwork

Communities of Practice and Ethnographic Fieldwork
Author: Lee Cabatingan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2024-11-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1040251692

Communities of Practice and Ethnographic Fieldwork offers a new perspective on how ethnography might be learned in real time through participation in a supportive community of practice. It draws on the experiences, knowledge, and training of an interdisciplinary group of scholars who have studied legal topics ethnographically alongside and with the support of fellow ethnographers at varying stages of their careers. Contributors address topics that are of interest to those who teach ethnography as well as to those who are learning this approach. Such topics include ethics, positionality in the field, the combination of personal and professional circumstances, and the process and pain of changing research topics. Each chapter emphasizes the role of mentoring and collective problem-solving through a lab model of fieldwork practice, particularly when carrying out research with subjects and interlocutors who may have undergone trauma. Written by a diverse group of scholars, this volume will appeal especially to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and female-identifying ethnographers in a range of fields. It provides a framework for how fieldwork can continue moving forward even in the most challenging of times and will be of particular interest to scholars in anthropology, sociology, law, urban planning/studies, geography, political science, ethnic studies, public policy, sociolegal studies, and education.

The Anthropology of Law

The Anthropology of Law
Author: Fernanda Pirie
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2013-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199696845

"Questions about the nature of law, its relationship with custom, and the form of legal rules, categories and claims, are placed at the centre of this challenging, yet accessible, introduction. Anthropology of law is presented as a distinctive subject within the broader field of legal anthropology, suggesting new avenues of inquiry for the anthropologist, while also bringing empirical studies within the ambit of legal scholarship.

Law and Society

Law and Society
Author: Matthew Lippman
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 1163
Release: 2017-09-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1506395422

“This is a well-rounded book that seems more interesting to students than other books I have used. It provides information on some cutting-edge themes in law and society while staying well grounded in the theories used by law and society practitioners.” —Lydia Brashear Tiede, Associate Professor, University of Houston Law and Society, Second Edition, offers a contemporary, concise overview of the structure and function of legal institutions, along with a lively discussion of both criminal and civil law and their impact on society. Unlike other books on law and society, Matthew Lippman takes an interdisciplinary approach that highlights the relevance of the law throughout our society. Distinctive coverage of diversity, inequality, civil liberties, and globalism is intertwined through an organized theme in a strong narrative. The highly anticipated Second Edition of this practical and invigorating text introduces students to both the influence of law on society and the influence of society on the law. Discussions of the pressing issues facing today’s society include key topics such as the law and inequality, international human rights, privacy and surveillance, and law and social control. Log in at study.sagepub.com/lippmanls2e for additional teaching and learning tools.

Subjects of Responsibility

Subjects of Responsibility
Author: Andrew Parker
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0823233227

How and why has the concept of responsibility come to pervade the fabric of American public and private life? How are ideas of responsibility instantiated in, and constituted by, the workings of social and political institutions? What place do liberal discourses of responsibility, based on the individual, have in today's biopolitical world, where responsibility is so often a matter of risk assessment, founded in statistical probabilities? Bringing together the work of scholars in anthropology, law, literary studies, philosophy, and political theory, the essays in this volume show how state and private bureaucracies play crucial roles in fashioning forms of responsibility, which they then enjoin on populations. How do government and market constitute subjects of responsibility in a culture so enamored of individuality? In what ways can those entities--centrally, in modern culture, those engaged in insuring individuals against loss or harm--themselves be held responsible, and by whom? What kinds of subjectivities are created in this process? Can such subjects be said to be truly responsible, and in what sense?

Therapeutic Justice

Therapeutic Justice
Author: Karen A. Snedker
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2018-06-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319789023

This book examines Mental Health Courts (MHC) within a socio-legal framework. Placing these courts within broader trends in criminal justice, especially problem-solving courts, the author draws from two case studies with a mixed-methods design. While court observational and interview data highlight the role of rituals and procedural justice in the practices of the court, quantitative data demonstrates the impact of incentives, mental health treatment compliance and graduating patterns from MHC in altering patterns of criminal recidivism. In utilising these methods, this book provides a new understanding of the social processes by which MHCs operate, while narrative stories from MHC participants illustrate both the potential and limitations of these courts. Concluding by charting potential improvements for the functioning and effectiveness of MHCs, the author suggests potential reforms and ‘best practices’ for the future in tandem with rigorous analysis. This book will be of value and interest to students and scholars of criminology, law, and social work, as well as practitioners.

The Life of the Law

The Life of the Law
Author: Laura Nader
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2002-02-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520936183

Laura Nader, an instrumental figure in the development of the field of legal anthropology, investigates an issue of vital importance for our time: the role of the law in the struggle for social and economic justice. In this book she gives an overview of the history of legal anthropology and at the same time urges anthropologists, lawyers, and activists to recognize the centrality of law in social change. Nader traces the evolution of the plaintiff's role in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century and passionately argues that the atrophy of the plaintiff's power during this period represents a profound challenge to justice and democracy. Taking into account the vast changes wrought in both anthropology and the law by globalization, Nader speaks to the increasing dominance of large business corporations and the prominence of neoliberal ideology and practice today. In her discussion of these trends, she considers the rise of the alternative dispute resolution movement, which since the 1960s has been part of a major overhaul of the U.S. judicial system. Nader links the increasing popularity of this movement with the erosion of the plaintiff's power and suggests that mediation as an approach to conflict resolution is structured to favor powerful--often corporate--interests.

The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society

The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society
Author: Austin Sarat
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 047069291X

The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society is an authoritative study of the relationship between law and social interaction. Thirty-two original essays by an international group of expert scholars examine a wide range of critical questions. Authors represent various theoretical, methodological, and political commitments, creating the first truly global overview of the field. Examines the relationship between law and social interactions in thirty-three original essay by international experts in the field. Reflects the world-wide significance of North American law and society scholarship. Addresses classical areas and new themes in law and society research, including: the gap between law on the books and law in action; the complexity of institutional processes; the significance of new media; and the intersections of law and identity. Engages the exciting work now being done in England, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, South Africa, Israel, as well as "Third World" scholarship.