[en] Through their different encounters with union, court, and government equality agency lawyers, workers report diverse understandings of their personal experience of injustice in the workplace. This paper examines workers’ experiences of discrimination and the role legal professionals play in litigating these issues in Belgium. Bringing together legal and rights consciousness studies and the sociology of intermediation and tracking different stages in the construction of discrimination cases, from the moment when a future litigant describes an event as an injustice to the moment when the judge recognises a discriminatory behaviour (or conversely, dismisses a case), we suggest several possible empirical explanations of the way in which interactions with legal intermediaries affect workers’ rights consciousness. Because we refer to socio-legal studies from common law countries, this paper also calls into question how best to import these studies to assist in analysing legal mobilisations and legal consciousness in continental Europe.
Disciplines :
Sociology & social sciences
Author, co-author :
Lejeune, Aude ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Institut des sciences humaines et sociales > Institut des sciences humaines et sociales
Orianne, Jean-François ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Institut des sciences humaines et sociales > Sociologie de l'action publique et des problèmes du travail
Language :
English
Title :
The construction of workers’ rights consciousness through legal intermediations: the case of employment discrimination in Belgium
Publication date :
December 2014
Journal title :
International Journal of Discrimination and the Law
Abel R (1985) Law without politics: Legal aid under advanced capitalism. UCLA Law Review 32: 474-642.
Albiston C (1999) The rule of law and the litigation process: The paradox of losing by winning. Law & Society Review 33: 869-910.
Bereni L and Chappe V-A (2011) La discrimination, de la qualification juridique à l'outil sociologique. Politix 24: 9-34.
Bessy C and Eymard-Duvernay F (eds) (1998) Les intermédiaires du marché du travail. Paris: PUF.
Boigeol A (1980) Les avocats et les justiciables démunis: De la déontologie au marché professionnel. PhD Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Paris Descartes, Paris, France.
Boltanski L (1994) La dénonciation. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 51: 3-40.
Boltanski L (2009) De la Critique. Précis de Sociologie de L'émancipation. Paris: Gallimard.
Bumiller K (1987) Victims in the shadow of the law: A critic of the model of legal protection. Signs 12: 421-439.
Bumiller K (1988) The Civil Rights Society: The Social Construction of Victims. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Bumiller K, Bereni L, Chappe VA, et al. (2011) Victimes dans l'ombre de la loi: Une critique du modèle de protection juridique. Politix 94: 131-152.
Burstein P (1985) Discrimination, Jobs, and Politics: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity in the United States since the New Deal. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.
Callon M (1986) Eléments pour une sociologie de la traduction L'Année Sociologique 36: 169-208.
Cam P (1978) Juges rouges et droit du travail. Actes de la Recherche en Science Sociale 1: 2-27.
Carlin J, Howard J and Messinger S (1967) Civil Justice and the Poor: Issues for Sociological Research. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Chappe VA (2013) L'égalité en procès. Sociologie politique du recours audroit contre les discriminations au travail. PhD Dissertation. ENS of Cachan.
Cichowski R (2007) The European Court and Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Commaille J and Dumoulin L (2009) Heurs et malheurs de la légalité dans les sociétés contemporaines. La sociologie politique de la "judiciarisation." L'Année Sociologique 59: 63-107.
Conant L (2002) Justice Contained: Law and Politics in the European Union. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Conley J and O'Barr W(1990) Rules versus Relationships: The Ethnography of Legal Discourses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Curran B (1977) The Legal Need of the Public: The Final Report of a National Survey. Chicago: American Bar Foundation.
De Munck J (2006) Vers un nouveau paradigme du droit. In: Eymard-Duvernay F (ed) L'économie des Conventions. Méthodes et Résultats. Paris: La Découverte, pp. 249-264.
De Munck J and Orianne JF (2008) Droits sociaux et mondes possibles. L'exemple du droit europe én au congé parental. In: De Munck J and Zimmermann B (eds) La liberté au prisme des capacités. Amartya Sen au-delà du libéralisme. Paris: EHESS, pp. 263-280.
De Witte B (2009) From a "common principle of equality" to "European antidiscrimination law". American Behavioural Scientist, 53: 1715-1730.
Donohue J and Siegelman P (2005) The evolution of employment discrimination law in the 1990s: A preliminary empirical investigation. In: Nielsen LB and Nelson R (eds) Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 261-284.
Engel D and Munger F (2003) Rights of Inclusion: Law and Identity in the Lives of American with Disabilities. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Ewick P and Silbey S (1998) The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ewick P and Silbey S (2003) Narrating social structure: Stories of resistance to legal authority. American Journal of Sociology 108: 1328-1372.
Eymard-Duvernay F and Marchal E (1997) Façons de Recruter. Le Jugement des Compétences sur le Marché du Travail. Paris: Métaillé.
Felstiner W, Abel R and Sarat A (1981) The emergence and transformation of disputes: Naming, blaming, claiming⋯. Law & Society Review 15: 631-654.
Galanter M (1974) Why the 'haves' come out ahead: Speculations on the limits of legal change. Law & Society Review 9: 95-160.
García Villegas M (1995) L'efficacité symbolique et pouvoir social du droit. Revue interdisciplinaire d'études juridiques 34: 155-179.
García VillegasM (2003) Symbolic power without symbolic violence? Critical comments on legal consciousness studies in USA. Droit et Société 53: 137-161.
Garfinkel H (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Gertner N (2012) Losers' rules. The Yale Law Journal Online 122: 109-124.
Gleeson S (2009) From rights to claims: The role of civil society in making rights real for vulnerable workers. Law & Society Review 43: 669-700.
Greenhouse C (1988) Courting difference: Issues of interpretation and comparison in the study of legal ideologies. Law & Society Review 22: 687-708.
Guiraudon V (2009) Equality in the making: Implementing European non-discrimination law. Citizenship Studies 13: 527-548.
Hennion A (1983) Une sociologie de l'intermédiaire: Le cas du directeur artistique de variétés. Sociologie du Travail 4: 459-474.
HeyerK(2002) TheADAon the road: Disability rights inGermany. Law&Social Inquiry 27: 723-762.
Israël L (2009) L'arme du droit. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
Israël L and Pelisse J (2004) Quelques éléments sur les conditions d'une 'importation'. Note pré- liminaire à la traduction du texte de S. Silbey et P. Ewick. Terrains et Travaux 6: 101-111.
Kelemen D (2003) The EU rights revolution: Adversarial legalism and European integration. In: Borzel T and Cichowski R (eds). The state of the European Union: Law, politics, and society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 221-235.
Ladinsky J (1963) Careers of lawyers, law practice, and legal institutions. American Sociological Review 28: 47-54.
Latour B (1987) Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lejeune A (2011) Les professionnels du droit comme acteurs du politique: Bilan critique de la littérature nord-américaine et enjeux de l'importation de ces travaux en Europe continentale. Sociologie du Travail 53: 216-233.
Lejeune A and Orianne JF (2014) Choisir des cas exemplaires : La Strategic litigation face aux discriminations. Déviance et Société 38: 55-76.
Marshall AM (2003) Injustice frames, legality, and the everyday construction of sexual harassment. Law & Social Inquiry 28: 659-689.
Mather L (2009) Bringing the lawyers back in. In: MillerM(eds) Exploring Judicial Politics. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 43-63.
Matsuda M (1987) Looking to the bottom: Critical legal studies and reparations. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 22: 323-399.
McCann M (1994) Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilisations. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.
Merry SE (1990) Getting Justice, Getting Even: Legal Consciousness Among Working-Class Americans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Merry SE (1992) Anthropology, law, and transnational processes. Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 357-379.
Merry SE (1995) Resistance and the Cultural Power of Law. Law & Society Review 29: 11-26.
Meyer JE (1998) Intermédiaires de l'emploi et marché du travail. Sociologie du Travail 40: 345-364.
Nielson LB (2000) Situating legal consciousness: Experiences and attitudes of ordinary citizens about law and street harassment. Law & Society Review 34: 1055-1090.
Nielson LB and Nelson R (eds) (2005) Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities. Dordrecht: Springer.
Pelisse J (2005) A-t-on conscience du droit? Autour des legal consciousness studies. Genèses 59: 114-130.
Provine Doris M (1996) Courts and the political process in France. In: Jacob H, Blankenburg E, Kritzer H, Provine Doris M and Sanders J (eds) Courts, Law and Politics in Comparative Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 177-248.
Reading P (2010) The importance of strategic litigation: The experience in Britain. Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Roussel V (2002) Affaires de Juges. Les Magistrats Dans les Scandales Politiques en France. Paris: La Découverte.
Sarat A (1990) ' ⋯The law is all over': Power, resistance, and the legal consciousness of the welfare poor. Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 2: 343-357.
Sarat A and Felstiner W (1986) Law and strategy in the divorce lawyer's office. Law & Society Review 20: 93-134.
Silbey S (2005) After legal consciousness studies. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 1: 323-368.
Soennecken D (2013) Theorizing Legal Mobilization: Refugee NGOs in Germany. ECPR joint sessions, Mainz.
Stryker R (2007) Half empty, half full, or neither: Law, inequality, and social change in capitalist democracies. Annual Review on Law and Social Sciences 3: 69-97.
Sturm S (2001) Second generation of employment discrimination: A structural approach. Columbia Law Review [online] 101: 458-568. Available at: Http://ssrn.com/abstract=244407 (accessed 25 March 2011).
Sturm S (2005) Law's role in addressing complex discrimination. In: Nielsen LB and Nelson R (eds) Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 35-57.
Vanhala L (2009) Anti-discrimination actors and the use of litigation strategies. Journal of European Public Policy 16: 738-754.
Vinck D (1999) Les objets intermédiaires dans les réseaux de coopération scientifique: Contribution à la prise en compte des objets dans les dynamiques sociales. Revue Française de Sociologie 40: 385-414.
Weber M (1949 [1904]) The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Glencoe: The Free Press.
Ygnvesson B (1989) Inventing law in local settings: Rethinking popular legal culture. Yale Law Journal 98: 1689-1709.