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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.

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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?

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Care for ageing parents is conventionally considered a personal/family matter in the Indian context. In this paper, I explore how Indian courts judge cases of elder abuse. I also highlight the gaps between the law's definition of abuse and older person's subjective experiences.

Paper long abstract:

Abuse is a subjective experience. Sometimes, care can be experienced as abuse, while abusive behaviour may be normalised as care. Taking into cognisance the rising cases of elder abuse and abandonment of older people by their children, in 2007 the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act was enacted by the Government of India. This law aims to provide relief to aggrieved older persons by making it obligatory for children to support their parents without financial means. While this law acknowledges deceitful property transactions and abandonment by one’s children, it does not specify what constitutes “abuse”. We are left to decipher and interpret its meaning by reading tribunal orders or court judgments. In this paper, firstly, I examine the way courts understand “abuse” and secondly, the nature of evidence accepted by courts to prosecute children or relatives for their abusive acts. I explore these questions by analysing select High Court and Supreme Court of India judgments. While the law makes the older person dependent on the family for care, the courts mostly operate as a protective figure, proactively ensuring their safety, which may include evicting children from their parent’s homes. This paper examines the court's legal reasons for taking measures against the children. I refer to socio-legal and anthropological literature on abuse and violence to explain the juridical meaning(s) of abuse. The paper finds that the courts provide a wide range of interpretations of “abuse.”

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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.

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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.

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My paper is based on the story of Yassin, a young Moroccan who 'used' his minority status to move to Europe. Through this story I analyse the lived experience of the legal figure of Unaccompanied Foreign Minor (UFM) and argue that it is a resource of mobility in the transnational social field.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I analyse the lived experience of the legal figure of Unaccompanied Foreign Minor (UFM) and argue that it is a resource of mobility in the transnational social field (Glick Schiller et al., 1992). Having conducted a multi-sited ethnography between Morocco, Spain and France, I situate myself within the theories of autonomous migration (Vacchiano & Jiménez, 2012) which consider that the movement of these young people through Europe is a decision made by weighing up their own circumstances and interests.

My paper is based on the story of Yassin, a young Moroccan who 'used' his minority status to avoid expulsion, move and finally regularise his administrative situation. The ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Child Protection Laws obliges all persons under 18 years of age in a situation of lack of protection to be protected by the state, regardless of their nationality. Despite the fact that the situation of these young people is not desirable for anyone, the declarations of minority are not aimed at being protected, but rather at not being expulsed.

In this sense, the relationship between the legal concept of UFM and the Child Protection System ends up making it an unreliable resource, as the entry into the system contains the movement of these young people. Finally, boys like Yassin end up displacing this resource, declaring themselves minors when there is a possibility of being expelled and fleeing the Child Protection System when they want to move autonomously.

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Paper short abstract:

This presentation would tether itself to the question around how caste plays a role in the working of legal institutions in India. It seeks to explore the 'vernacularisation of law' in everyday life arising out of PhD fieldwork in Bihar, India

Paper long abstract:

Caste is a social system that is found in South Asian societies, through which the social identity, access to resources, and institutional power is determined. Notwithstanding the major diversities and differences within these broad layers, the two big distinctions of dominant and non- dominant castes are what forms the basis of why the question of Caste is still relevant within politics, media, judiciary, and academic studies alike.

The change in social structure and everyday interactions between the state, caste and citizens over the last few decades has raised questions - how does caste affect or influence justice in the formal institution of courts and judiciary; and, why does it play a role in the judicial system and courts where there is an individualised discourse of equality? These questions led me to delve into an exploration of how social structures can have an impact on institutions of state that are built on an individualised logic of citizens and an impartial justice system or vice versa.

In asking this question this paper will investigate the intersection of caste and law in the everyday life within and beyond institutional domains. As state power becomes more accessible to marginalised sections of the society owing to the democratic changes in Bihar, and northern India more generally, the frontier of legal anthropology therefore lies in the study of the role that caste plays in the administration of justice, and whether judicial institutions are also undergoing a degree of democratisation ?

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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?

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Paper short abstract:

We examine the autonomous justice system of a Roma group that has migrated from Romania to 16 Western countries. A long-term collaborative ethnography allowed the analysis of 76 cases, most resolved by kris courts, a form of legal pluralism and network governance independent of state institutions.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the system of conflict resolution maintained by a Roma group that has migrated from the Romanian regions of Transylvania and Banat to over 16 countries in Western Europe and North America. The analysis is based on a long-term collaborative ethnography which allowed the detailed reconstruction of 76 conflicts that occurred between 2001 and 2022. Out of these conflicts, 54 were resolved through kris hearings conducted by a tribunal of selected judges or krisonieres. This paper provides an initial analysis of this database, addressing tow key aspects of the kris procedures: 1) How this system works nowadays within diasporic networks that heavily rely on digital technologies for transnational communication and interaction. 2) The types of conflicts addressed by the system and æ connections with the sociopolitical organization of these communal groups, particularly in relation to gender, marriage, and sexuality systems. 3) How are kris resolutions enforced in the absence of consolidated political leadership or the coercive power of state institutions. This autonomous justice system, epitomized by kris courts, represents a form of embedded legal pluralism and network governance. Consensus within this social field is fostered by the goal of minimizing threats and violence while maintaining interconnectedness in the face of exclusion and discrimination.