Paper short abstract:

We explore how the use of the so-called “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) constitutes a pattern of discrimination in the Spanish state justice system. Its use aggregates gender, childhood, family, mental-health, and sexual violence-based stereotypes that are the basis for legal decisions.

Paper long abstract:

In this contribution, we explore how the use of the so-called “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) constitutes a gendered pattern of discrimination in the Spanish state justice system. Drawing on an interdisciplinary research that brings together anthropological, sociological and legal gazes to analyze 47 complete cases’ files plus one hundred sentences, we analyze how psychologist, social workers, forensics, public prosecutors and judges are influenced by moralities when working with cases of gendered violence and child sexual abuse within the family.

When such decisions are made, the closure of the penal case on family violence is just the beginning of a legal process whose examination shows the long-term consequences of using PAS. For the mothers and children involved in the research, “lived law” equates gendered institutional violence. Their experience is that public institutions, especially the state legal system, fails to protect them from violence and turns the process against them, using the prism of spurious interests to examine how they relate the violence, giving credibility to the widely discredited PAS’ argument, and prescribing the so-called “threat therapy”— that is, adopting civil measures to separate mothers and children. Even though current law does not allow for the use of PAS, its persistence in the world of justice is an extreme yet privileged case study of how law emerges as a practice that supersedes written word, and impacts on access to justice in different ways and degrees, from disaffection to forms of institutional violence.

Paper short abstract:

Homosexuality in Jordan was decriminalized in 1951 however, there are still no structures in place to protect people from discrimination based on their sexuality. I ask how queer lives are experienced in relation to state legislation in today's Jordan.

Paper long abstract:

Based on a year-long ethnographic fieldwork among young queer men in Amman, Jordan in 2021 I wish to explore how queer experiences are affected by state legislation. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Jordan after breaking with British Mandate Criminal Code in 1951 however, there are still laws regarding crimes of honour that may put queer citizens in danger. One example is in the Jordanian Penal Code (no.16, 1960). Article 340 regarding crimes of honor which states:

He who catches his wife, or one of his female un-lawfuls committing adultery with

another, and he kills, wounds or injures one or both of them, is excused and benefits

from an exemption from the law.

He who catches his wife, or one of his female ascendants or descendants or sisters with

another in an un-lawful bed, and he kills or wounds or injures one or both of them,

benefits from a reduction of penalty (Abu-Odeh 2010: 913-914).

Another is that one of the only examples of a state official commenting on same-sex relations is the then interior minister saying the following: ”Jordan has not and will never endorse any charter or protocol acknowledging homosexuals – known as the LGBT community – or granting them any rights as it is considered a deviation from Islamic law and Jordanian constitution” (Human Rights Watch 2017).

I ask then; What are queer rights in Jordan? How can we understand them? And how are they experienced by my queer interlocutors on a day-to-day basis?

Paper short abstract:

Examining judicial actors’ responses to an Argentine Supreme Court decision and the social and political reactions it generated, I reflect on the place of emotions, and the impact of historical interpretations and political-ideological changes on justice making in trials of crimes against humanity.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I examine the emotional after-life of an Argentine Supreme Court decision from May 2017, which cut down prison time for convicted felons including those who were tried and convicted of committing crimes against humanity during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983). Social and political responses to the decision were swift and very dramatic, marking this decision as a turning point not only for the ongoing post-transitional justice processes but also for judicial actors’ interpretation of their work and role in contending with the country's difficult past.

Building on interviews conducted before and just after this Supreme Court decision and my more recent fieldwork in Buenos Aires (2022-2023) that looks at this event over half a decade later, in this paper I reflect on the way judicial decision making as well as judicial actors’ understanding of history are shaped by the ebbs and flows of social and political processes, emotional reactions and alternative interpretations of the law.

Paper short abstract:

Focusing on Atopo W+p+, an Indigenous Kali’na village in “French” Guiana, my ethnographic research explores how Indigenous people navigate, use and experience the law to fight a development project in France, where Indigenous rights are not recognised.

Paper long abstract:

As part of my doctoral research, I am working with and observing the work of Indigenous people who are using the law to defend Atopo W+p+, a Kali’na village in the north-west of “French” Guiana, against a “development” project being built on their ancestral lands. The Western French Guiana Power Plant (CEOG), whose construction is supported by the French state, is located on a 140-hectare site less than 2 km from the village. Earth-beings live on these lands, which are also used for bathing, hunting and fishing. Indigenous people have engaged in a legal battle against CEOG, which is a complex enterprise insofar as Indigenous rights are not recognised in France. By working with them, I aim to elucidate how and why they use the law against CEOG. More specifically, I aim to bring empirical evidence to the concept of juridification, i.e. the process by which Indigenous people articulate their demands in legal terms and define themselves as holders of specific rights, distinct from French individual rights.

Academically, the Kali’na of Atopo W+p+ have much to contribute to the juridification concept. How do they experience and navigate hegemonic norms that seem to be imposed on them? Preliminary observations indicate that they do not see the use of French and international law as a form of neo-colonisation, contrary to what some anthropologists have argued. What is interesting, then, is to understand how Indigenous people appropriate and practice these values, demonstrating the limitations and benefits that juridification implies for their struggles.

Paper short abstract:

Analyzing the course of a Romani judgment after an apparent ransom hit as an instance of “lived law” enables me to revisit/unsettle several binaries: that between state law and vernacular law, between justice and arbitration, between settlement and revenge, and ultimately between law and morality.

Paper long abstract:

My paper recounts a “Romani judgment” called upon to handle a ransom hit that occurred during my fieldwork in 2017 among a Romani group living in a marginal neighborhood in southern Romania. Even though it accommodates multiple variations in terms of how it is practiced across the various Roma groups, the Romani judgment ("judecata țigănească," also dubbed "kris" by some groups) is reportedly an ancient institution rooted in “Gypsy law” that conservative Romani-speaking peoples routinely resort to in order to resolve internal disputes—thereby also marking group limits, which can otherwise be rather porous. Romani judgments are inherently communitarian and largely consist of oratory. Moreover, in recent years they have turned to digital channels due to long-term migration. Despite these variations, the endurance of the Romani judgment as an institution is based on the belief shared by most Roma groups that state law merely enshrines the values of non-Roma and hence does not encompass their own norms of how “proper Roma” should behave. Tracing how the mediation process prompted by the attack unfolded inside the community I worked with, as well as its collusions with state law, my paper takes on a “lived law” perspective to unsettle/revisit several binaries: between state law and vernacular law, between justice and arbitration, between settlement and revenge, and ultimately between law and morality. In the case of vernacular justice, which is essentially a rhetoric exercise conflating legality, morality, and community politics, where do we ultimately draw the conceptual line between these domains—and should we?