Social & Legal Studies current issue

Of 'Normal Sex' and 'Real Rape': Exploring The Use of Socio-Sexual Scripts in (Mock) Jury Deliberation

Ellison, L., Munro, V. E. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

This article explores a series of 27 jury deliberations, undertaken by volunteer members of the public, following their observation of a mini-rape trial reconstruction. While research with ‘real’ jurors is prohibited in England and Wales, previous social attitude and experimental studies have suggested that jurors in sexual assault trials may well be influenced by dubious stereotypes about rape, rapists and rape victims. In this article, the authors explore the relationship between these (mis)conceptions about rape and public expectations regarding socio-sexual conduct more broadly. The authors examine the scripts that were invoked, defended and relied upon by mock jurors in order to distinguish ‘normal’ (hetero)sexual seduction from rape. More specifically, this article explores participants’ expectations (both descriptive and normative) in relation to the communication of consent, the role of male initiative, and the location, timing of and parties to sexual intercourse, as well as the relevance of the use of physical force, the fact of the parties’ drunkenness or the nature of their respective post-coital conduct.

Critical Legal Studies and the Politics of Space

Butler, C. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

A growing body of work over the past two decades has been explicitly concerned with the interdisciplinary connections between law and questions of space. Traversing topics such as the regulation of the city, control of public space and the symbolic dimensions of spatial conflicts, this literature constitutes an important contribution to critical legal scholarship. However, there is still much work to be done on the development of the theoretical foundations of this field. This article will present the writings of the French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre as revealing a sophisticated theory of space with potentially profound implications for the research program of critical legal studies. Lefebvrean ideas are directly relevant to the renewal of critical approaches to the structure and form of planning law and regimes of urban governance. His work also contains fertile resources for research into the transformation of traditional forms of political citizenship into the broader concept of urban citizenship. Both these examples highlight the importance of the politics of space for critical legal thought and the role Lefebvre’s social theory may play in its future development.

'Gay Couple's Break Like Fawlty Towers': Dangerous Representations of Lesbian and Gay Oppression in an Era of 'Progressive' Law Reform

Cobb, N. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

This article reconsiders the politics of knowledge production surrounding the discursively constructed sexual subject in light of the politico-cultural debates that ensued over enactment of the controversial 2007 Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations. Exploring the rise, in the course of these debates, of what it terms the ‘bed and breakfast paradigm’ of lesbian and gay oppression, the article questions whether that paradigm provides a suitably representative account of housing-related discrimination experienced by lesbians and gay men. It then goes on to highlight the silence during the debates that surrounded the pervasive intra-familial discrimination experienced by young lesbians and gay men within the home; a consequence, it finally argues, of law’s power to define the parameters of explanatory discourse around antidiscrimination protections according to an implicit public/private binary.

Racial Ideas and Gendered Intimacies: the Regulation of Interracial Relationships in North America

Thompson, D. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

This article compares the regulation of interracial intimacies in North America, contending that anti-miscegenation laws in the United States and Canada’s Indian Act regimes are both striking and comparable examples of the state’s regulation of the intimate sphere. The author argues that the social signifiers of race and gender, tied together with sexuality, are interlocking sets of power relations and these intersecting discourses are integral to understanding the comparative regulation of interracial intimacy in North America. In the circumstances of anti-miscegenation laws and the Indian Act, the transgression of gendered/raced social boundaries, the control of raced/gendered sexualities, the interlocking and mutually reinforcing nature of patriarchal, white supremacist and capitalist systems of domination, the threat of non-white access to white capital, and the predicament of racial categorization exist as a corollary of the state’s regulation of interracial intimate life. This article reveals the law and state as important sites of the creation and manipulation of racial boundaries, acting as producers and reproducers of racial ideas, and demonstrates that the interracial transgressions of sexual space were also perceived as transgressions of social, economic, and political boundaries between races, posing a threat to the dominant white and masculine hegemony in North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Imperialism and Nationalism in Early Modernity: The 'Cosmopolitan' and The 'Provincial' in Shakespeare's Cymbeline

Heinze, E. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

The discourses of conquering empire and vassal nation are varied, often internally contradictory. The empire may represent openness and diversity, or militarist brutality. The underling nation may represent autonomy and self-determination, or narrow provincialism. Those discourses spawn ideologies of liberation (‘the empire liberates the nation’, ‘the nation must be liberated from the empire’) and counter-ideologies of oppression (‘the empire oppresses the nation from without’, ‘the empire prevents oppression by dominant national groups of subordinate national groups’). Such concepts are central to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Bound to pay tribute to Caesar Augustus, Britain’s King Cymbeline contemplates a national rebellion against pax romana, while at the same time exercising its own dominance over Wales and other conquered territory in the Isles. Parallels to the reign of James I are apparent, where England is embarking upon its ascent to empire, its pax britannica, in the face of Welsh, Scottish or Irish resistance. Several discourses emerge as hallmarks of power politics in early modernity: cosmopolitan empire, oppressive empire, cosmopolitan nation, oppressive nation.

Vanquishing the Enemy or Civilizing the Neighbour? Controlling the Risks from Hazardous Industries

Haines, F. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

Inclusion of the local community in a continuous dialogue aimed at reducing the risks posed by hazardous industries such as chemical plants and oil refineries is an increasingly common feature of some regulatory regimes. This article explores the implications of this regulatory shift for the reduction of risk through research undertaken in a major Australian city. The study found that local communities, when given a formal voice in regulatory regimes, did push industry to consider an extended range of risks. These risks included the risk of explosion or major chemical spill threatening health and the environment (termed here actuarial risks) but also concerns about the orderliness within the local neighbourhood and proper relationships between industry and community (risks of a more socio-cultural nature). Further, the escalation of political risk was critical in determining which actuarial and socio-cultural concerns of the community were listened to. Regulatory innovations involving increased accountability of hazardous industry to the local community may increase pressure on targeted industry to reduce risk, but the ensuing risk management is likely to involve political and socio-cultural as well as actuarial risks.

Book Review: ALEXANDER SOMEK, Individualism: An Essay on the Authority of the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. xx + 307, ISBN 9780199542086

Goldoni, M. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

Book Review: JOHN MORISON, KIERAN MCEVOY AND GORDON ANTHONY (eds), Judges, Transition and Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 9780199204946, {pound}85.00 (hbk)

Yusuf, H. O. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

Book Review: NICOLA PADFIELD (ed.), Who to Release? Parole, Fairness and Criminal Justice. Cullompton: Willan, 2007, 288 pp., ISBN 1843922274, {pound}45 (hbk)

Wieckiewicz, K. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

Book Review: DAVID SEYMOUR, Law, Antisemitism and the Holocaust. London: Routledge Cavendish, 2007, 138 pp., ISBN 0415420407, {pound}22.99 (pbk)

Herman, D. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

Book Review: SUDHIR ALLADI VENKATESH AND RONALD KASSIMIR (eds) (2007) Youth, Globalization and the Law. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007, 384 pp., ISBN 139780804754743, {pound}59.80 (hbk)

Hutton, F. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT

Book Review: CLAIRE MOON (2008) Narrating Political Reconciliation: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2008, 188 pp., ISBN 0739121278, {pound}37.95 (hbk)

Stanley, E. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:51:24 PDT