ASA 2022 Los Angeles
Los Angeles Convention Center
Photo Credit: Wikimedia
Panels @ ASA 2022
Decolonizing the Sociology of Law: Gender, Race, and the Global South
Integral to the development of the discipline, classical sociological studies of law echoed many of the presuppositions of sociology and its imperial standpoint: the naturalization of gendered inequalities, the use of law to index racial difference across societies, and the separation of the study of global north and south. While contemporary sociologists of law have critiqued such assumptions, there remains the need to resituate the sociology of law and its perspectives in a broader call to decolonize sociology. This session invites papers that investigate the significance of gender, race, and other forms of difference (sexuality, disability, Indigeneity, etc.) in relation to the workings of law across the (post)colonial world. Inspired by the insights and scholarship of critical race theory, queer theory, and other feminist theories, the session aims to extend the dialogue on how decolonizing the sociological analysis of law produces new connections and points of departure.
Mon, August 8, 2:00 to 3:30pm
Presider
Jack Jin Gary Lee, American Bar Foundation
- Inherently Traumatic, Invariably Victimizing: The Legal Construction of Subject Positions for Survivors of Sexual Violence – Tugce Ellialti-Kose, Trent University
- Of Deviance and Patriarchy: Mechanisms of Gender-Based Discrimination in Russia’s Corruption Markets – Marina Zaloznaya, University of Iowa; Jennifer Glanville, University of Iowa; Jennifer Lola Haylett, University of Iowa
- Rationalizing Gender Exclusion: The Genesis of a Gendered Juridical Field in the Islamic Republic of Iran – Reyhaneh Javadi, University of Alberta
- Sexual Citizens, Traditional Subjects? Thinking Sexual Democratization Beyond Colonial Bifurcations – Stephen D Seely, Newcastle University
- STATECRAFT and BORDERWORK: Emerging Frontiers of Political and Social Representation in Colonial Punjab – Harleen Kaur, UCLA
Discussant
Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen, University of California Irvine
Session Organizer
Jack Jin Gary Lee, American Bar Foundation
Reception
Sociology of Law Section Reception
Check your email for details!
Mon, August 8, 6:30 to 8:30 pm
Roundtables
Session Organizers
Sida Liu, University of Toronto
Mikaela Rabinowitz, San Francisco District Attorney’s Office
Table 1. Structure and Bureaucracy in Criminal Justice
Table 2. Legal Challenges for Organizations and Civil Society
Table 3. Rights, Inequality, and Alternatives
Tue, August 9, 8:00 to 9:00am
Table 1. Structure and Bureaucracy in Criminal Justice
Table Presider
Joshua Kaiser, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
- Brazil’s Public Defenders in Action: A Topological Study of Work, Inequality and State Transformation – Maria-Fátima Santos, University of California, Berkeley
- Bureaucracy, Legitimacy, Race, and Class: The Historical Origins of Penal Exclusion in the United States – Joshua Kaiser, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
- How Structural Power and Social Inequalities are Reinforced by Police-Subject Encounters – Craig Alan Boylstein, Coastal Carolina University
- Litigant Status and the Judicial Gatekeeping of Expert Evidence in Courts – Timothy L. O’Brien, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Stephen L Hawkins, UW-Milwaukee
- Peering through the Blue Wall: Police realignment and California’s SB-1421 peace officer transparency law – Carlos Felipe Bustamante, George Washington University
- Possibility of Alternative Adjudication: A Case of Alternative Justice System Developed by the Kurds in Turkey – Yeter Tan, Binghamton University
Table 2. Legal Challenges for Organizations and Civil Society
Table Presider
Ina Filkobski
- Lawyers In The Streets: Public Assembly And Protest In Hong Kong Between Empire And Totalitarianism – Terence C. Halliday, American Bar Foundation
- Legislation processes and their impact on civil society of Israel – Ina Filkobski
- Mediating Autonomy: Healthcare Organizations’ Response to the California End of Life Option Act – Megan S. Wright, Pennsylvania State University; Cindy L. Cain, University of Alabama-Birmingham
- Mobilizing Equal Employment Rights: The Social and Political Determinants of Discrimination Complaints(2009-2018) – Masoud Movahed, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Elizabeth Hirsh, University of British Columbia
- The closing civic space for women’s organizations in Rome – Martina Di Folco, University of Oxford
Table 3. Rights, Inequality, and Alternatives
Table Presider
Meredith Hall, University of Southern California
- Automobility on Installments or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Car Loans – Nicholas Tucker Reyes, Columbia University; Spencer Headworth, Purdue University
- Codifying Fear: Measuring How Fear Reifies Environmental Law – Kat Albrecht, Georgia State University
- COVID-19 and The CARES Act in the Deep South: Mortgage Relief, Race, and Foreclosure – Bronwen Lichtenstein, University of Alabama; Joe Weber, University of Alabama
- Owning the Hate: Property Entrepreneurship and the Trademarking of Racial Slurs – Meredith Hall, University of Southern California
Business Meeting
Come hear all about the section, latest announcements, and see the awards presentation!
Tue, August 9, 9:00 to 9:30am
Becoming a Sociologist of Law
This is a professional development session aiming at giving academic and career advice to younger generations of sociologists who aspire to become specialists in the sociology of law.
Tue, August 9, 10:00 to 11:30am
Presider
Sida Liu, University of Toronto
Panelists: Ellen Berrey, University of Toronto, Elizabeth Chiarello, Saint Louis University, Kwai Hang Ng, University of California, San Diego, Ashley T. Rubin, University of Hawaii-Manoa, Emily Ryo, University of Southern California
Session Organizer
Sida Liu, University of Toronto
Legal Actors and Legal Infra-structures II
This session provides a space for discussing two divergent but complementary approaches to studying law sociologically: one focuses on legal actors such as judges and lawyers, and the other explores the law as an “infrastructure,” such as the legal resources, information, discourses, and institutions available to individuals, social groups, and the state. While the first approach highlights the law’s actors and “visible action,” the second approach exposes the invisible scaffolding work of formal law in everyday life. By looking at what actors demand of law and what law provides, we hope to shed light on new and enduring sociolegal questions. The session welcomes submissions focusing on either legal actors or legal infrastructure, broadly defined.
Tue, August 9, 12:00 to 1:30pm
Presider
Vitor Dias, Indiana University-Bloomington
- A Tale of Two Worlds? Child Custody Outcomes of Divorce Litigations in Contemporary China – Ya Su, Dickinson College
- Expandable and Worthy? Victim Exceptionalism Tradeoffs in Immigrant Legal Services – Lilly Yu, Harvard University
- Global Environmental Change, Local Social Problems: Litigating for Climate Justice in a Microcosm of the Anthropocene – Vitor Dias, Indiana University-Bloomington
- Punitive Protests and Judicial Decisions: Evidence from Brazil’s Anti-Corruption Movements – Luiz Vilaca, University of Notre Dame
Session Organizer
Matthew Peter Fox, SUNY Brockport
Legal Actors and Legal Infra-structure
This session provides a space for discussing two divergent but complementary approaches to studying law sociologically: one focuses on legal actors such as judges and lawyers, and the other explores the law as an “infrastructure,” such as the legal resources, information, discourses, and institutions available to individuals, social groups, and the state. While the first approach highlights the law’s actors and “visible action,” the second approach exposes the invisible scaffolding work of formal law in everyday life. By looking at what actors demand of law and what law provides, we hope to shed light on new and enduring sociolegal questions. The session welcomes submissions focusing on either legal actors or legal infrastructure, broadly defined.
Tue, August 9, 2:00 to 3:30pm
Presider
Heba Alex, University of Chicago
- A Study of Pandemic and Stigma Effects in Removal Proceedings – Ian Peacock, University of California, Los Angeles; Emily Ryo, University of Southern California
- Democratizing the Local State: Claims, Complaints and the Right to Welfare in India – Anindita Adhikari, Brown University
- “Legal Exhaustion” and the Crisis of Human Rights: Legal Mobilization Against Torture of Kurdish Women – Nisa Goksel, Arizona State University-West; Jaimie Morse, University of California-Santa Cruz
- Of the State, Against the State: Public Defenders, Street-Level Bureaucracy, and Discretion in Criminal Court – Gillian Slee, Princeton University
- Using the law to contest law enforcement: How activists intervene in legal fact-finding – Magda Boutros, University of Washington
Session Organizer
Heba Alex, University of Chicago
Sociology of Law 