Objectif
This research investigates ways in which third sector advice agencies are becoming new sites for the emergence of legal consciousness, bringing together theoretical perspectives on social policy and the sociology of translation with legal consciousness methods. It will develop understandings of legal consciousness as not simply individual practices (a form of ‘legal capability’) but as the potential for collective, political action through cultural practices of institutions that mediate between citizens and the formal institutions and practices of law. Advice agencies rather than professional lawyers are becoming key actors in legal arenas, particularly for citizens with precarious relationships to rights. Such organisations perform multiple roles. Through casework they translate complex legal structures, opening doors to enable citizens to pursue their own rights. Casework then allows agencies to see into the lives of ‘ordinary people’, forming the basis for interventions in social policy. Through re-presenting personal grievances of multiple clients as matters of public concern, they can illuminate ways in which policies and practices of powerful institutions create injustices, how mechanisms meant to enable access to justice can instead throw up barriers to justice. The research is an in-depth study of the institutional practices of UK advice organisations. It focuses principally on Citizens Advice, the leading UK advice organisation, now part of European and international networks of citizens advice services. Through case studies it will investigate ways in which advice agencies can transform people’s subjective experience of law into objective understandings of everyday injustices, thus creating a dialogue which empowers citizens and governmental processes. A study of the most long-established of the citizens advice organisations can provide a window for European policy makers and legislators through which they can understand better the social action of law.
Champ scientifique
Appel à propositions
ERC-2011-StG_20101124
Voir d’autres projets de cet appel
Régime de financement
ERC-SG - ERC Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
BS8 1QU Bristol
Royaume-Uni