{"title":"Theory in socio-legal studies: Revisiting the Cotterrell–Nelken debate","authors":"ISOBEL ROELE","doi":"10.1111/jols.12554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12554","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This contribution celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication in this journal of an era-defining debate between Roger Cotterrell and David Nelken. It reads the debate as the product of the communicative turn in legal theory, the absorbing and productive nature of which many of us – including the present author – are in danger of forgetting as our work tilts towards today's turns of choice. At the same time, the critical distance afforded by the turn away from communication makes visible underlying commitments and patterns that were less apparent a generation ago.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S48-S61"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.12554","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theory, praxis and politics in law and society research: Reflections on the Cotterrell–Nelken debate","authors":"NAFAY CHOUDHURY","doi":"10.1111/jols.70004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70004","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, I provide reflections on the continuing value of the Cotterrell–Nelken debate within law and society research. Specifically, I pick up on two discussion points that animate this debate. First, the debate quintessentially probes the identity of the discipline of the sociology of law. In this regard, it is very much concerned about how the boundaries of a discipline are formed. I reflect on how this issue continues to persist across law and society research, as questions on the boundary formation and dissolution of different concepts and categories are ubiquitous and an animating feature of the field. Second, I reflect on how lurking behind the questions raised by the debate are political considerations that structure legal and socio-legal analysis. The Cotterrell–Nelken debate raises vexing questions on what law <i>is</i> and what law <i>ought</i> to be, without clearly resolving them. Indeed, any resolution seems futile and instead points to the political choices that underpin different understandings of the law and its relationship to other social scientific fields. Across law and society research, vexing questions about the nature and function of law within specific settings may relate to political choices that receive inadequate scholarly attention. Law and society research would thus benefit from an agenda that places the politics underlying different legal discourses into plain view.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S32-S47"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Out of time? Going back to the Cotterrell–Nelken debate","authors":"DAVID NELKEN","doi":"10.1111/jols.70002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70002","url":null,"abstract":"<p>These brief comments revisit my side of the argument in the so-called Cotterell–Nelken debate in the light of responses from two younger scholars. I suggest that the debate presupposed a considerable level of shared commitment to studying sociology's relationship to law, together with some disagreement about what was required for sociology of law to be truly reflexive about the limits of its own intellectual resources.</p><p>Amongst the valuable points made by the commentators on our debate is the idea that Cotterell's concern was more to understand the role of the various participants who make and use law, whereas Nelken was more interested in exploring how discourses reproduce themselves. Going forward, I suggest that there is considerable scope for bringing these concerns together through empirical research into the various ways legal institutors and procedures embrace or reject ‘scientific’ forms of expertise, including those generated by the social sciences.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S62-S69"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Response to Flora Renz, ‘Gender (de)certification and the home: A new focus for feminist legal scholarship?’","authors":"ROSEMARY HUNTER","doi":"10.1111/jols.12544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12544","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Flora Renz's paper ‘Gender (de)certification and the home: A new focus for feminist legal scholarship?’ draws attention to instances in which the question of gender (de)certification is relevant to the private sphere. This response to Renz's paper reflects on the fact that gender categories remain highly salient in the ‘private’ realm of family law, despite the formal gender neutralisation or decertification found in legislation and judicial decisions in this field. It goes on to problematise the public/private distinction itself and to highlight the rich vein of feminist scholarship which has argued that the ‘private’ functions as a zone in which non-state normativities often flourish unexamined to the detriment of women. Rather than unquestioning acceptance and/or ideological deployment of the gender and public/private binaries, it argues for a more nuanced understanding of both and of the interrelationships between them.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S110-S115"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sociology of labour law and the economy","authors":"RUTH DUKES","doi":"10.1111/jols.12543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12543","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This short article reviews research on the sociology of labour law and the economy, highlighting, in the final paragraph, research of that nature that has been published in this journal. As a supplement to Sabine Frerichs’ more general reconstruction, in this issue, of how different generations of socio-legal thinking have dealt with matters of law, economy and society, it briefly sketches the theorising and analysis of the economy in labour law scholarship, from the beginning of the 20th century until today.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S88-S92"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.12543","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reconnecting law, economy and society in JLS and beyond","authors":"SABINE FRERICHS","doi":"10.1111/jols.12541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12541","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This contribution discusses the continued relevance but changing appearance of research connecting law, economy and society in the socio-legal field. It uses the perspective of the <i>Journal of Law and Society</i> (JLS), which indeed seems to be a good place to start, as it kept the economy on the agenda throughout five decades of scholarly production so far. The development of socio-legal scholarship embracing the economic dimension is reconstructed in terms of ‘three generations’, which are linked with historical, realist and constructionist programmes coming to the fore at different times. The respective research paradigms and practices differ by their emphasis on ‘law in’, ‘law and’ or ‘law as’ in its relation to economy and society. This history and the present state of the field are illustrated with articles from the <i>JLS</i> and with regard to what our neighbours in law and economics were and are doing at the same time.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S76-S87"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.12541","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Raising a claim for (animal) justice: The end(s) of socio-legal and critical legal studies","authors":"STEWART MOTHA","doi":"10.1111/jols.70000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70000","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This short essay follows an invitation from this journal to reflect on the relation between socio-legal and critical legal studies over the past 50 years, a period during which the <i>Journal of Law and Society</i> has been one of the primary conduits for scholarship of both persuasions. After interrogating their commonalities and differences, hopes and anxieties, I go on to suggest that legal studies should be oriented by the objective of opening claims for justice, and I argue that this needs to be extended to animal justice.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S168-S175"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.70000","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What does the showing of voluntary participation by the defendant do for criminal justice professionals?","authors":"CYRUS TATA","doi":"10.1111/jols.12555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12555","url":null,"abstract":"<p>How do justice professionals, in their everyday practices, reconcile what they regard as their competing obligations: to allow participation and yet to conclude cases efficiently? This article argues that rather than doing so through individual self-talk denying the value of participation, or, by overt pressure on the defendant, professionals need to see evidence of apparent participation, often through the work shown to them by other professionals. ‘Humanisation work’ to inform the court, conducted, for example, by social work and probation staff, is a subtle yet potent way in which defendants are encouraged to admit guilt so as to show that they have been able freely to voice their unique story. The defendant's case can therefore be concluded with little conflict because she appears to the court to show that she freely accepts the legitimacy of its impending punishment. Future research directions are proposed.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S140-S147"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.12555","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gender (de)certification and the home: A new focus for feminist legal scholarship?","authors":"FLORA RENZ","doi":"10.1111/jols.12549","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12549","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article considers three sites that draw out the contemporary role of gender categories in the home in the context of a wider project on gender decertification. Firstly, the presence of those who are employed to do care work in the home. Secondly, the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and the way in which the parliamentary debates surrounding the introduction of the DAA highlight appropriate and inappropriate areas of legal intervention in the context of gendered ‘intimate’ relationships. Finally, the ways in which gender categories are understood in the interactions between schools/children and parents. Overall, this article argues that contemporary discourse on gender categories and trans inclusion/exclusion has primarily focused on issues within the public sphere, while the realm of the private sphere has been somewhat neglected and would benefit from a renewed focus on feminist engagements with the ways in which gender categories and norms are constructed and reinforced in this setting.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S98-S109"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jols.12549","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Segregation and researcher's positionality: Challenges of conducting policy ethnography in Southern polarized settings","authors":"DEVANSH SHRIVASTAVA","doi":"10.1111/jols.12556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12556","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Researchers conducting policy ethnography in conflict environments are faced with a valuable ethical dilemma – is there an ethical standard to determine how a dataset should be pursued in the field? What if the method of pursuing data carries the potential of possibly disrupting one's rapport with the community and being perceived as a partisan ideologically driven researcher with ulterior motives? This question becomes more pronounced in socio-legal, conflict and public policy research in spatially polarized settings of the South. In these settings, knowledge is co-produced through one's own positionality and the nuances of grey areas that do not often feature in aggregated datasets. Scholarship on positionality has questioned whether scholars should explicate their position on the field by pointing towards the intentional or unintentional perpetuation of hierarchies. This paper situates itself in the positionality debate with reference to castelessness in socio-legal research through nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in a Southern spatially polarized setting. It grapples with an emerging contrasting view of whether researchers should at all engage in explicating their positionality. The paper argues that data is a socio-spatial product. It is to suggest that the production of data in conflict settings is informed by the spatial dynamics of social relations that emerge in the co-production of knowledge, and the researcher's reflexive positionality that itself impacts the outcome of data that emerges.</p>","PeriodicalId":51544,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Law and Society","volume":"52 S1","pages":"S224-S240"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145196585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}