Abstract
Hilary Sommerlad Angela Melville Lisa Hanson Sameer Ashar Meera Deo Marijke Ter Voert Hilary Sommerlad The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has underlined the extent to which we inhabit a ‘racialised … world in which material and symbolic resources continue to be deeply unequally distributed’ (Hall 2006) . BLM has also highlighted the pivotal role of law generally, not just the criminal justice system, in producing and sustaining that racialised world (Akbar 2018; Butler 2016: 1458–66) . Law’s conceptual categories and schema inform the construction, communication, and interpretation of social relations (Silbey 2005) , enacting and legitimating the unequal distribution of material and symbolic resources. Yet the law is also a site of struggle and source of the tools for challenging archetypal cultural categories – while determining the terms of contestation (Merry 1995: 20) . This double-sided and hence indeterminate character of law, which operates on an ‘ethical, emotional or...
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Lawyers in 21st Century Societies |
Subtitle of host publication | Volume 2: Comparisons and Theories |
Editors | Richard L. Abel, Hilary Sommerlad, Ole Hammerslev, Ulrike Schultz |
Place of Publication | Oxford, UK |
Publisher | Hart Publishers |
Chapter | 8 |
Pages | 173-200 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Volume | 2 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781509931224, 9781509931231 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781509931217 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Keywords
- Race
- Ethnicity
- Legal Profession
- Black Lives Matter
- political basis
- Gender
- Class