scholarly journals Negotiating Legitimacy: Binational Couples in the Face of Immigration Bureaucracy in Belgium and Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Odasso
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Heterosexual Couples ◽  
Marriage Migration ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Migration Management ◽  
The Face ◽  
Migration Regimes

Drawing from ethnographic research conducted with binational heterosexual couples negotiating their legitimacy in the face of immigration bureaucracy in Belgium and Italy, I explore the interplay between marriage migration governmentality and personal subjectivities. In a context of increased political scrutiny, I illustrate how binational couples wield their intimacy to become and stay legal; and how their experiences of the bureaucratic encounters impact on both partners’ agency, producing swinging emotions and improving their legal culture. In Belgium and Italy, marriage to a citizen remains a pathway towards securing residence for the migrant partner. Hence, in both countries these formalities, that I frame as a network of bordering practices, are increasingly – but differently – policed defining divergent marriage migration regimes but similar shared migratory careers for the couples. The potency of the legal-bureaucratic culture fashions the couples’ journey through immigration law and its street-level implementation. Nevertheless, beyond the opportunity structures and nationally anchored constraints, the analysis demonstrates that the partners’ agency similarly emerges from the migration management at large, their personal legal status and biographical resources, and interactions with intermediaries at the margin of immigration bureaucracy. Such agency – triggered by intimate intentions and expectations – is contingent and relational.

More than victims: Resiliency of undocumented Latinas near Chicago, United States, and the strategic use of psychological suffering in obtaining legal status

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-368
Author(s):  
Stephanie Jean Kohl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Psychological Suffering ◽  
Visa Application ◽  
Biological Citizenship

Caught between abusive partners and restrictive immigration law, many undocumented Latina women are vulnerable to domestic violence in the United States. This article analyzes the U-Visa application process experienced by undocumented immigrant victims of domestic violence and their legal advisors in a suburb of Chicago, United States. Drawing on theoretical concepts of structural violence and biological citizenship, the article highlights the strategic use of psychological suffering related to domestic violence by applicants for such visas. It also investigates the complex intersection between immigration law and a humanitarian clause that creates a path towards legal status and eventual citizenship.

‘Turning Human Beings into Lawyers’

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-104
Author(s):  
Insa Koch
Keyword(s):  
Financial Regulation ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Legal Anthropology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Experts

Does anthropology matter to law? At first sight, this question might seem redundant: of course, anthropology matters to law, and it does so a great deal. Anthropologists have made important contributions to legal debates. Legal anthropology is a thriving sub-discipline, encompassing an ever-increasing range of topics, from long-standing concerns with customary law and legal culture to areas that have historically been left to lawyers, including corporate law and financial regulation. Anthropology’s relevance to law is also reflected in the world of legal practice. Some anthropologists act as cultural experts in, while others have challenged the workings of, particular legal regimes, including with respect to immigration law and social welfare.

Social workers’ peculiar contribution to ethnographic research

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald de Montigny
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Ethical Orientation ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Face

Over generations, social workers have borrowed theories from sociology. However, sociologists have generally avoided borrowing theory from social work. By beginning with social work practice wisdom, we can unfold the complex elements organizing social work practice and by extension ethnographic research. Complexity and resulting uncertainty are antidotes for theoretical purity. Practice as grounded in life, that of client’s and social workers is inherently “dirty”, i.e., messy, disorganized, confusing, unfolding, and uncertain. Understandings and practices are accomplished in a connection of self to a profession, agency/organization, mandate and purpose, and ethical orientation, in interaction with colleagues and clients. Social workers take sides as they are grounded in an ethic of care. The challenge of developing an ethical practice in the face of difference, disagreement, disjunction, and conflict lead social workers to bracket, and hence reflect on the putative coherence of a “life world.” Face-to-face work with individuals rather than being a liability provides a source of knowledge and wisdom to inform social science generally.

Regulatory potential of legal culture and legal awareness of modern Ukrainian society

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Roman Zvarych ◽  
Tetyana Polishchuk
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Legal Consciousness ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Regulatory Potential ◽  
Ukrainian Society

Goal. The purpose of the work is a comprehensive analysis of the main problems of the regulatory potential of legal culture and legal awareness of the individual and its implementation in modern Ukrainian society. Method. The study used a set of theoretical methods of scientific knowledge, in particular: the method of scientific analysis; system-structural; historical and legal; axiological; comparative law; formal-legal and method of generalization. Results. In the course of the research it was proved that the modern philosophy of realization of regulatory potential of legal culture and legal consciousness should consist in strengthening of humanizing character of regulatory influence, be directed not on authoritarian authoritarian, imperative attribution, authorizing, binding types of legal regulations that authoritatively guide the actions, behavior of people and are seen as omnipotent universal mechanisms for solving problems of social life, and to create conditions for the realization of freedom, human potential, its legal status, social activity, creativity and initiative , which, of course, must be implemented on the basis of social, legal and moral norms enshrined in society. Scientific novelty. According to the results of the study, the new conceptual foundations of the regulatory potential of legal culture and legal awareness should be aimed at creating conditions for identifying deep dimensions of the inner world of man, his individual legal worldview, which allows him to become the creator of social and legal reality. Practical significance. The results of the research can be useful in the process of forming a general theoretical concept of the regulatory potential of legal culture and legal consciousness of modern Ukrainian society.

scholarly journals Revisiting notions of sex trafficking and victims

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 274-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Piscitelli
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
International Level ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
The Face ◽  
International Human

This article examines the migratory processes and work experiences of Brazilian female sex workers active in Spain. It is based on ethnographic research conducted over eleven months, at different moments between November 2004 and January 2012, in Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao and Granada. The principal argument is that the notions of prostitution and international human trafficking held by Brazilian sex workers clash with those found in the current public debate of these issues. Brazilian migrant sex workers' acts and beliefs defy political and cultural protocols on the national and international level, and fly in the face of the 'destiny' that Brazilian society laid out for these individuals.

scholarly journals Localizing informal practices in transnational entrepreneurship

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laure Sandoz
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Personal Goals ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Informal Practices ◽  
Transnational Entrepreneurship ◽  
Unequal Access ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities ◽  
Migration Regimes

Transnational entrepreneurs are often represented as active agents capable of mobilizing resources situated in different countries to develop new businesses. However, restrictive migration regimes limit the possibilities of individuals to become entrepreneurs. Based on ethnographic research in Barcelona, Spain, this article argues that, in a context of unequal access to formal resources, resorting to informality is crucial for many entrepreneurs as it enables them to expand their options for social mobility and achieve personal goals that would otherwise remain unreachable. The article proposes a critical perspective on the notions of informality and entrepreneurship. It highlights that these concepts rely on context-dependent norms set by certain social groups and challenged by others, which influence who can become an entrepreneur in specific environments. While certain categories of migrants are favorably positioned with regard to these norms, others are hindered by them and therefore are forced to engage in alternative entrepreneurial activities. How this is achieved, and the costs involved depend on the entrepreneur’s capacity to mobilize economic, cultural, social, and moral resources as well as on the perception of their practices as more or less legitimate or socially acceptable.

Don Luis Castilla Offers to Sell Land in Manila (1629)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regalado Trota José
Keyword(s):  
Legal Culture ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Legal Process ◽  
The Face ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

A series of documents from the Archives of the University of Santo Tomás in Manila tell of the attempt by one Luis Castilla, an indigenous Tagalog speaker and member of the local aristocracy or “principalía,” to sell various parcels of land. As one of the oldest surviving examples of legal process in the Philippines, the Castilla dossier speaks of the rapid implantation of Spanish legal culture in Luzon, and of its adaptation to colonial conditions. The documents combine Spanish with Romanized Tagalog and Tagalog written in the native baybayin script, as well as some Chinese characters. They also help us appreciate how the early principalía managed to acquire land in the face of opposition from powerful forces in the Church. Regalado Trota José provides context and comments on the material aspects of the manuscripts.

To Protect and Preserve: Echoes of Traditional Jewish Burial Culture in the Exhumation of Holocaust Mass Graves in Postwar Belarus and Ukraine

AJS Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-98
Author(s):  
Sarah Garibova
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Physical Security ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Soviet Jews ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Face

As Soviet Jews returned to their hometowns after the Holocaust, they encountered a catastrophic landscape of mass graves that defied Jewish traditions of dignified, secure burial. Throughout the postwar decades, survivors strove to bring their relatives “to a Jewish grave”—in other words, to provide them a burial consistent with Jewish burial norms. These norms included the desire to bury children beside their parents, concern for the physical security and legal status of grave plots, a reluctance to disturb the dead, and a fear of exposing human remains to public view. Given the chaotic circumstances under which these graves had been created, it was impossible to uphold all four principles. Thus, some survivors chose to transfer mass graves to the local Jewish cemetery immediately after the war. Other communities chose to mark and preserve the graves at their original locations, only opting for exhumation in the face of a direct threat such as erosion. Although grave exhumation is generally prohibited in Jewish tradition, Soviet Jews did not embrace exhumation out of religious ignorance, but instead performed them out of a desire to approximate traditional Jewish burial norms under novel, catastrophic circumstances. Thus, these exhumations illustrate how traditional values and practices can continue to linger and evolve, even in the absence of religious texts, institutions, and clergy.

Introduction: The Middle Class in Post-socialist Europe: Ethnographies of Its “Good Life”

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-440
Author(s):  
Magdalena Crăciun ◽  
Ștefan Lipan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Special Section ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Current Period ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Turmoil

In this special section, drawing from ethnographic research undertaken in Estonia, Russia, Romania, and Bulgaria between 2013 and 2017, we argue that in post-socialist Europe the notions of “middle class” and “good life” have become interchangeable. Related dialectically, each can be substituted for the other as a signifier of a field of aspirations and possibilities. In the current period of persistent economic crisis, deepening social inequality, and growing political turmoil, this interchangeability is a significant ideational conjunction, making it possible to declare middle-class aspirations inherently ethical and thus depoliticise them. Equally important, this interchangeability sustains the continuous idealisation of middle-classness in the face of accumulating frustrations, disappointments, and disillusionments among both the aspiring and the more established middle classes. Nevertheless, our interlocutors differ in their understanding of the kind of “good life” that middle-classness supports. Beyond individual horizons of expectations and socio-economic positions, these differences stem from their experience of recent economic and political crises and from their location at the more, and the less, prosperous local and global “margins.” These differences illustrate the fluidity of these signifiers, which unify an otherwise heterogeneous set of meanings, practices, and relationships.

Same-Sex Relationships and Anglo-Canadian Choice of Law: An Argument for Universal Validity

1997 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 103-136
Author(s):  
Wendy A. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Choice Of Law ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Face

SummaryThe distinction between formal and essential validity in Anglo-Canadian choice of law regarding marriage is an illogical bifurcation that unnecessarily invalidates same-sex relationships contracted in foreign jurisdictions. The Supreme Court of Canada has recently reformulated certain rules of private international law, taking into account both the constitutional and sub-constitutional imperatives inherent in a federal setting and the need for order and fairness when co-ordinating diversity in the face of increasing globalization. Reform of the choice of law rules regarding the validity of foreign marriages should proceed accordingly with the result being that a marriage valid where celebrated is valid everywhere. No principled reason exists to deny recognition to same-sex relationships validly contracted in other jurisdictions, nor to differentiate between the rights and obligations arising from the legal status of same-sex and different-sex relationships.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document