Symbolic power without symbolic violence ? critical comments on legal consciousness studies in USA

Droit et Societe

Volumn 53, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 137-161

  García Villegas, Mauricio ^a  

^a UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA   (Colombia)

Author keywords

Comparative sociology of law; Legal culture; Social practice; Social theory; Symbolic violence

Indexed keywords

EID: 67649257144     PISSN: 07693362     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3917/drs.053.0137     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. Michael MCCANN and Tracy MARCH, « Law and Everyday Forms of Resistance : A Socio- Political Assessment », in Austin SARAT and Susan S. SILBEY (eds.), Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, London, JAI Press, 1995. These authors are : Patricia EWICK and Susan S. SILBEY, « Conformity, Contestation and Resistance : An Account of Legal Consciousness », New England Law Review, 26 (3), 1992 ;
2. Sally E. MERRY, Getting Justice and Getting Even : Legal Consciousness among Working-Class Americans, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1990 ;
3. Austin SARAT, « Off to Meet the Wizard : Beyond Validity and Reliability in the Search for a Post-empiricist Sociology of Law », Law & Social Inquiry, 15 (1), 1990 ;
4. Lucie WHITE, « Subordination, Rhetorical Survival Skill, and Sunday Shoes : Notes on the Hearing of Mrs. G. », Buffalo Law Review, 38, 1990 ;
5. Barbara YNGVESSON, Virtuous Citizens, Disruptive Subjects : Order and Complaint in a New England Court, New York, Routledge, 1993.
6. Patricia EWICK and Susan S. SILBEY, « Conformity, Contestation and Resistance : An Account of Legal Consciousness », op. cit.
7. Patricia EWICK and Susan S. SILBEY, The Common Place of Law : Stories from Everyday Life, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 17.
8. David M. TRUBEK and John ESSER, « "Critical Empiricism" in American Legal Studies : Paradox, Program or Pandora's Box ? », Law and Social Inquiry, 14 (1), 1989, p. 3-52. For the complete debate, see Law and Social Inquiry, 15 (1), 1990.
9. Austin SARAT, « Off to Meet the Wizard : Beyond Validity and Reliability in the Search for a Postempiricist Sociology of Law », op. cit.
10. Michael W. MCCANN, Rights at Work : Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994.
11. The cultural emphasis in these studies is notorious. On this point see ibid.
12. Clifford GEERTZ, Local Knowledge : Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, New York, Basic Books, 1983 ; Michel DE CERTEAU, The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Steven F. Rendall, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984. And on postmodernism, see Joel F. HANDLER, « Postmodernism, Protest, and The New Social Movements », Law and Society Review, 26 (4), 1992.
13. In theoretical matters, North American sociologists of law have been somewhat dependent on European tendencies. On this point, see Boaventura DE SOUSA SANTOS, « Room for Manoeuver : Paradox, Program, or Pandora's Box ? », Law & Social Inquiry, 4, 1989 ;
14. David M. TRUBEK and John ESSER, « "Critical Empiricism" in American Legal Studies : Paradox, Program or Pandora's Box ? », op. cit.
15. Paul W. KAHN, The Cultural Study of Law : Reconstructing Legal Scholarship, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999.
16. Danièle LOSCHAK, « Droit, normalité et normalisation », in CURAPP (ed.), Le droit en procès, Paris, PUF, 1983 ;
17. Georges BALANDIER, Le pouvoir sur scènes, Paris, Balland, 1992 ;
18. José Eduardo FARIA, Eficácia jurídica e violência simbólica. O direito como instrumento de transformacão social, São Paulo, Universidade de São Paulo, 1988 ;
19. Mauricio GARCÍA VILLEGAS, La eficacia simbólica del derecho : análisis de situaciones colombianas, Bogotá, Uniandes, 1994.
20. Austin SARAT, « "The Law is All Over" : Power, Resistance and Legal Consciousness of the Welfare Poor », Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, 2, 1990, p. 343-379.
21. George LAKOFF and Mark JOHNSON, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980.
22. Joseph R. GUSFIELD, Symbolic Crusade : Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1963.
23. Danièle LOSCHAK, « Droit, normalité et normalisation », op. cit.
24. Sally E. MERRY, Getting Justice and Getting Even : Legal Consciousness among Working-Class Americans, op. cit.
25. In the US, this process of conversion is frequently found in Policy Analyses. For an example of it in the European context, see Simon CHARBONNEAU and Jean G. PADIOLEAU, « La mise en oeuvre d'une politique publique réglementaire : le défrichement des bois et forêts », Revue française de sociologie, 21 (1), 1980, p. 49- 75.
26. Austin SARAT and Susan S. SILBEY, « The Pull of the Policy Audience », Law and Policy, 10 (2/3), 1988, p. 97-166.
27. Clyde W. BARROW, Critical Theories of the State : Marxist, Neo-Marxist, Post-Marxist, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
28. James BOYLE, « The Politics of Reason : Critical Legal Theory and Local Social Thought », University of Pennsylvania Law Review, April 1985.
29. See Mark TUSHNET, « An Essay on Rights », Texas Law Review, 62, 1984 ;
30. David KAIRYS (ed.), The Politics of Law : A Progressive Critique, New York, Basic Books, 1998.
31. On this point, see Michel CROZIER and Erhard FRIEDBERG, L'acteur et le système : les contraintes de l'action collective, Paris, Seuil, 1977. In Europe and in the United States, see the authors of the school called « new institutionalism » in sociology : Walter W. POWELL and Paul J. DIMAGGIO (eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991.
32. Patricia EWICK and Susan S. SILBEY, The Common Place of Law : Stories from Everyday Life, op. cit.
33. Pierre BOURDIEU, The Logic of Practice, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1990. For an application of this concept to the field of law, see Frédéric OCQUETEAU and Francine SOUBIRAN-PAILLET, « Champ juridique, juristes et règle de droit : une sociologie entre disqualification et paradoxe », Droit et Société, 32, 1996, p. 9-26.
34. According to Bourdieu, « the cognitive structures which social agents implement in their practical knowledge of the social world are internalized "embodied" social structures » (Pierre BOURDIEU, La distinction : critique sociale du jugement, Paris, éd. de Minuit, 1979).
35. Pierre BOURDIEU, « La force du droit : éléments pour une sociologie du champ juridique », Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 64, 1986, p. 3-19.
36. Ibid.
37. This idea of symbolic power is also usefully explored by Georges BALANDIER, Le pouvoir sur scènes, op. cit., and Harry PROSS, La violencia de los símbolos sociales, Barcelona, Anthropos, 1989.
38. Pierre BOURDIEU, Choses dites, Paris, éd. de Minuit, 1987.
39. Pierre BOURDIEU, with Loïc J.D. WACQUANT, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992.
40. LCS consider themselves to be « studies of legal culture », Susan S. SILBEY, « Making a Place for Cultural Analyses of Law », Law and Social Inquiry, 17 (1), 1992, p. 39-48 ;
41. Michael W. MCCANN, Rights at Work : Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization, op. cit.
42. Michael MCCANN, Rights at Work, op. cit., p. 31.
43. Patricia EWICK and Susan S. SILBEY, The Common Place of Law, op. cit., p. 224.
44. Ibid., p. 225-226.
45. Ibid., p. 225.
46. Christine B. HARRINGTON and Barbara YNGVESSON, « Interpretative Sociolegal Research », Law and Social Inquiry, 15 (1), 1990, p. 135-154 (p. 142).
47. I admit with McCann, however, that Merry's analysis (Sally E. MERRY, Getting Justice and Getting Even : Legal Consciousness among Working-Class Americans, op. cit.) of this relation is different to the extent that she establishes a distinction between ideology and discourses.
48. Michael MCCANN and Tracy MARCH, « Law and Everyday Forms of Resistance : A Socio- Political Assessment », op. cit.
49. Pierre BOURDIEU, Méditations pascaliennes, Paris, Seuil, 1997, p. 204-205. For an explanation of Bourdieu's opposition against the celebration of resistance, struggles and creative practices of the dominated, see Pierre BOURDIEU, with Loïc J.D. WACQUANT, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, op. cit.
50. Patricia EWICK and Susan S. SILBEY, « Conformity, Contestation and Resistance : An Account of Legal Consciousness », op. cit., p. 31.
51. According to Swartz, interpreting Bourdieu : « If his theory of practices extends the idea of interest to culture, then his theory of symbolic power extends culture to the realm of interest with the claim that all forms of power require legitimation » (David SWARTZ, Culture and Power : The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997).
52. See Pierre BOURDIEU, Le sens pratique, Paris, éd. de Minuit, 1980.
53. In the selection or rejection of cultural styles is implicit a search for profit analogous to the quest for economic advantage (Pierre BOURDIEU, Raisons pratiques : sur la théorie de l'action, Paris, Seuil, 1994).
54. However, in his Méditations pascaliennes, Bourdieu warns about the concept of ideology (Pierre BOURDIEU, Méditations pascaliennes, op. cit., 1997).
55. Austin SARAT, « "The Law is All Over" : Power, Resistance and Legal Consciousness of the Welfare Poor », op. cit., p. 343-379.
56. Michael BURAWOY et al., Ethnography Unbound : Power Resistance in the Modern Metropolis, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991 ;
57. Boaventura DE SOUSA SANTOS, Toward a New Common Sense : Law, Science, and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition, New York, Routledge, 1995.
58. Pierre BOURDIEU, Le sens pratique, op. cit. ;
59. ID., Choses dites, op. cit.
60. Pierre BOURDIEU, Méditations pascaliennes, op. cit., p. 208-209.
61. Barbara YNGVESSON, « Inventing Law in Local Settings : Rethinking Popular Legal Culture », The Yale Law Journal, 98, 1989, p. 1693.
62. Austin SARAT, « Redirecting Legal Scholarship in Law Schools », Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, 12, 1999.
63. See Stuart HALL, « The Problem of Ideology : Marxism without Guarantees », in David MORLEY and Kuan-Hsing CHEN (eds.), Stuart Hall : Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, London, New York, Routledge, 1996.
64. Pierre BOURDIEU, with Loïc J.D. WACQUANT, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, op. cit., p. 105. It is worth noticing that, unlike LCS, some European legal sociologists take this connection between symbols and material conditions seriously. See, for instance : Boaventura DE SOUSA SANTOS, Toward a New Common Sense : Law, Science and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition, op. cit. ;
65. André-Jean ARNAUD, Critique de la raison juridique, Paris, LGDJ, 1981 ;
66. Roger COTTERRELL, « The Sociological Concept of Law », Journal of Law and Society, 10 (2), 1983, p. 241-255, etc.
67. Barbara YNGVESSON, « Inventing Law in Local Settings : Rethinking Popular Legal Culture », op. cit.
68. Ibid.
69. Pierre BOURDIEU, with Loïc J.D. WACQUANT, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, op. cit., p. 97.
70. A sort of fascination with the concept of power as developed by Foucault in Le Panoptique is found in LCS. This enchantment seems to be paradoxical to the extent that the opacity, the submission even, of social actors to power structures is so characteristic of Foucault's thought. What happens is that in North American sociology of law Foucault's conception of power is very often taken up only insofar as it is something fluid, variable and decentralized and not as it is shown to be an omnipresent structure that determines social action. I question whether it is legitimate to dismember Foucault's work in this fashion.
71. Boaventura DE SOUSA SANTOS and Mauricio GARCÍA VILLEGAS (eds.), El caleidoscopio de las Justicias en Colombia, Bogotá, éd. Uniandes, Siglo del Hombre, 2001.
72. Pierre BOURDIEU, Méditations pascaliennes, op. cit., p. 202.
73. For example those of Bourdieu, or even, closer to home, Boaventura DE SOUSA SANTOS, Toward a New Common Sense : Law, Science and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition, op. cit. ; see also feminist studies (Martha MINOW, « Interpreting Rights : An Essay for Robert Cover », Yale Law Journal, 96, 1987) or critical studies of race (Kimberlé CRENSHAW, « Race, Reform and Retrenchment : Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law », Harvard Law Review, 101 [7], 1988) or Latino studies, LatCrit (Elizabeth M. IGLESIAS, « Identity, Democracy, Communicative Power, Inter/National Labor Rights and the Evolution of LatCrit Theory and Community », University of Miami Law Review, 53, 1999).
74. A good example of the theoretical connection between micro and macro can be seen in the concept of the « extended case method » developed by Michael Burawoy ; such a method « attempts to elaborate the effects of the "macro" on the "micro". It requires that we specify some particular feature of the social situation that requires explanation by reference to particular forces external to itself » (Michael BURAWOY et al., Ethnography Unbound : Power Resistance in the Modern Metropolis, op. cit.). See also Karin KNORR-CETINA and Aaron V. CICOUREL (eds.), Advances in Social Theory and Methodology : Toward an Integration of Micro- and Macro- Sociologies, Boston, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981. Concerning socio-legal studies, Santos develops a complex macro/micro framework for the explanation of the role law plays in society as well as for overcoming the dichotomy agency/structure (Boaventura DE SOUSA SANTOS, Toward a New Common Sense : Law, Science and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition, op. cit.).
75. A similar version of this article is being published in the University of Florida Law Review and a different version will be published in the International Journal For the Semiotics of Law. I would like to thank Jane Larson, John Brigham, Sally Merry, Cesar Rodríguez, Diego Lopez, Howard Erlanger, Catherine Albiston, Daniel Lipson, Cris Rggiero, Ruben Garcia, Oscar Guardiola, Jonathan Graubart, Dan Steward, and Austin Sarat, for the valuable comments they provided on an earlier version of this article.