Social Context and Social Location in the Sociology of Law
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The sociology of law in the 1990s encountered uncertain terrain. The reconsideration of race, class, and gender destabilized the discourses of the previous 30 years. Global economic politics, restless divisions within both nation and state, and increasing demand from the marginalized have nearly paralysed these discourses in their attempt to address the very real and serious problems faced by increasing numbers of the population.
As we move into the next century, it has become apparent that the needs of various disenfranchised groups are being pitted against one another, for example, legal costs against social assistance costs, sustenance needs of 'racialized' communities against land claims. The needs of the disenfranchised are also pitted against those of the powerful, the needs of the victim against the needs of a professional association to protect itself, the downsizing of a corporate market against the needs of the worker, the needs of children against the needs of the state to protect its policies. What is clear from these struggles is the paucity of theory to explain these frictions. What are the options for critical work? Other than pitting an analysis of politics and economy (as Marx does) against analyses of power and discourse (as Foucault does), perhaps it is more important to examine how critical theory needs to move with this de-centering. Critical theory in the sociology of law needs to! address the fracturing and disruption of the very social services that claim to support the needs of the victim, the poor, and the child. The fact, for example, that apathy and despair have replaced activism in the "community" and that survival has replaced service as the economic motif from which we are expected to construct our lives are problems that the sociology of law is just beginning to understand.
The work in this text represents an evolving body of critical analysis of the law and its social context. Moving from Gayle MacDonald's overview of the traditional discourses of the sociology of law and the promise of critical theory, contributing authors offer insights into the effect of social context on the formation of law and the ways in which the particularities of social location bear on the application of law and resistance to it.
This text weaves social location and the social context, stories about law in ways that reveal the exciting new developments in critical theory in this field. Critical theorists tend to be characterized by an ability to move easily between micro/macro traditions, and to strengthen theories of conflict by adding new, micro explanations that come from the interpretative tradition, such as feminist theory and social constructionism. This, in fact, is one of the key strengths of critical theory; to move between and among prior classifications of theory and method with relative ease, blurring the distinctions between these dialectics and opening the possibility for new fields of research. The premise, then, of the critical paradigm is to critique law, legal process and outcome in terms of the social problems that are created or even exacerbated by the very system designed to root out discord among social groups.
About the Author
Gayle MacDonald is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology at St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB.
Social Context and Social Location in the Sociology of Law,Gayle M. Macdonald,Broadview Press,1551113708,Criminology,General,Legal Reference / Law Profession,Social Science,Sociological jurisprudence,Sociology
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