Critical Review: The Common Place of Law
The Common Place of Law is an interesting empirical research of legal consciousness that is actually a very strong logical theory, in which law is recognized as both constituting and being constituted by social relations and cultural practice. The question that Ewick and Silbey spawn their theory from comes from the classic question, “how is the law experienced” rather than “what is the law,” this was a very compellingly argument made by Ewick and Silbey. The latter question that I saw arise from their argument was from where did most of the classic legal theory and jurisprudence; and did they spring from the subset question “how is the law experienced”. Seeing that law is not something that only exist and can be studied, but law is created by the process of inquiry and definition. In attempting to make the mechanisms by which discrete individual action becomes legal and institutional, and vice versa. A cultural analysis of law, or Ewick and Silbey’s Constitutive theory, suggest that the law is a product of the reciprocal nature of meaning-making: people create meaning as they engage in society. Ewick and Silbey start this inquiry not through a textual analysis of philosophy, statue, or constitutional law, but rather by asking what is” the everyday” meaning of the law as experienced by lay people in real-life situations. Ewick and Silbey start this off by inquiring not through textual analysis of statues, or constitutional law, but by asking what is “the everyday” meaning of law experienced by asking real people in real-life situations. Ewick and Silbey method for this approach was to interview a random cluster sample of residents from New Jersey, which they achieved that by interviewing over one hundred face-to-face interviews. The two authors wanted to make sure that their data was bias in anyway so they acquired a diverse sample, with diverse racial composition, population density, and socioeconomic status. They achieved this by focusing on four New Jersey counties that would produce this varies population. The Interviews appeared to not be scripted by they were semi-directed, because they used opened-ended questions which were intended to produce a narrative-like response. I am not entirely sure if this was a theory-testing or theory generating project. As in were the interviews apart of a test which tested “how people experienced law,” or did this generate the theory of “how people experienced law”. It appears to be theory-generated, although one critique that I would have to give coming from this viewpoint is that the interviewees’ responses might have been provoked in a way to corroborate the authors’ theories of legal consciousness. The book starts off by articulating its project to “illustrate the diversity of law’s uses and interpretations,” and “demonstrate that legality is an emergent feature of social relations rather than an external apparatus acting upon social life” (17). Thus, Ewick and Silbey’s clarifies the law goes far beyond “formal” law as embodied by Constitutions, Statutes, text, or even traditional, formal constructions of law we know from political theory and philosophy. When the authors communicated that the three schemas of legal consciousness, experience, and constitution. …show more content…
The interviewees often thought of themselves as coming “before the law,” and in an oppositional relationship in which they were in a bureaucratic, definitional remove, with no ability to affect the law, nor did they have the aptitude to define its meaning purpose, or ends. This is the most original to traditional notion of the law as well as being objective, and as an external apparatus operating on society and individuals. The Rule of law is seen as a buffer between the individual and their society. This is law and society- life definition in the formal sense, and not a legal consciousness or experience. With the law, this is closer to society interactive model of legal consciousness. With this one the interviewees’ stories were supporting the idea that an individual can work with the law and plays the rules in their favor. With this model, it helps the interviewees’ gain more power in with the legal system. This power is at least in the sense of that the individuals can manipulate rules. However, the people that can play the rules to their advantage are the people that have resources to help them
The Common Place of Law is an interesting empirical research of legal consciousness that is actually a very strong logical theory, in which law is recognized as both constituting and being constituted by social relations and cultural practice. The question that Ewick and Silbey spawn their theory from comes from the classic question, “how is the law experienced” rather than “what is the law,” this was a very compellingly argument made by Ewick and Silbey. The latter question that I saw arise from their argument was from where did most of the classic legal theory and jurisprudence; and did they spring from the subset question “how is the law experienced”. Seeing that law is not something that only exist and can be studied, but law is created by the process of inquiry and definition. In attempting to make the mechanisms by which discrete individual action becomes legal and institutional, and vice versa. A cultural analysis of law, or Ewick and Silbey’s Constitutive theory, suggest that the law is a product of the reciprocal nature of meaning-making: people create meaning as they engage in society. Ewick and Silbey start this inquiry not through a textual analysis of philosophy, statue, or constitutional law, but rather by asking what is” the everyday” meaning of the law as experienced by lay people in real-life situations. Ewick and Silbey start this off by inquiring not through textual analysis of statues, or constitutional law, but by asking what is “the everyday” meaning of law experienced by asking real people in real-life situations. Ewick and Silbey method for this approach was to interview a random cluster sample of residents from New Jersey, which they achieved that by interviewing over one hundred face-to-face interviews. The two authors wanted to make sure that their data was bias in anyway so they acquired a diverse sample, with diverse racial composition, population density, and socioeconomic status. They achieved this by focusing on four New Jersey counties that would produce this varies population. The Interviews appeared to not be scripted by they were semi-directed, because they used opened-ended questions which were intended to produce a narrative-like response. I am not entirely sure if this was a theory-testing or theory generating project. As in were the interviews apart of a test which tested “how people experienced law,” or did this generate the theory of “how people experienced law”. It appears to be theory-generated, although one critique that I would have to give coming from this viewpoint is that the interviewees’ responses might have been provoked in a way to corroborate the authors’ theories of legal consciousness. The book starts off by articulating its project to “illustrate the diversity of law’s uses and interpretations,” and “demonstrate that legality is an emergent feature of social relations rather than an external apparatus acting upon social life” (17). Thus, Ewick and Silbey’s clarifies the law goes far beyond “formal” law as embodied by Constitutions, Statutes, text, or even traditional, formal constructions of law we know from political theory and philosophy. When the authors communicated that the three schemas of legal consciousness, experience, and constitution. …show more content…
The interviewees often thought of themselves as coming “before the law,” and in an oppositional relationship in which they were in a bureaucratic, definitional remove, with no ability to affect the law, nor did they have the aptitude to define its meaning purpose, or ends. This is the most original to traditional notion of the law as well as being objective, and as an external apparatus operating on society and individuals. The Rule of law is seen as a buffer between the individual and their society. This is law and society- life definition in the formal sense, and not a legal consciousness or experience. With the law, this is closer to society interactive model of legal consciousness. With this one the interviewees’ stories were supporting the idea that an individual can work with the law and plays the rules in their favor. With this model, it helps the interviewees’ gain more power in with the legal system. This power is at least in the sense of that the individuals can manipulate rules. However, the people that can play the rules to their advantage are the people that have resources to help them