The Form of Forms: Everyday Enablers of Access to Justice

Forms are vehicles that register the everyday. A bureaucratic form starts a dialogue between an individual and the State in a particular area of public administration. The visual design of bureaucratic forms shapes what is registered and how personal identity is documented in the eyes of the State. This article is situated in the field of administrative justice and argues that we must increase the scope for personal narrative in the design of bureaucratic forms. Meers notes that there has been no sustained research into application forms despite the importance of forms in the administration of the welfare state. By drawing on sociological scholarship on registration and narrative together with socio-legal scholarship on design, the ideas explored offers a novel and interdisciplinary approach to scholarship on the form of forms.