The New Civil Rights Research: A Constitutive Approach

First published in 2006, this book brings together some of the most innovative and important research on civil rights law and legality, this book draws on narratives of individuals from a variety of contexts to provide a rich and contextualized understanding of what happens when law interacts with other competing systems or forms of social organization. By privileging the real world experiences of those most influenced by rights, the collection moves beyond the traditional polarizing debates and presents a constitutive approach to rights that is not reducible to a simple 'for or against' rights formula. While this complex consciousness approach often contributes to the reproduction of dominant-subordinate social relations, it also allows for spaces of resisting existing hierarchical structures embedded in various law-related sites.

Contents: Preface: On legal rights consciousness: a challenging analytical tradition, Michael Mccann. Introduction: a constitutive perspective of rights, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner and Laura Beth Nielsen.Part I Rights in Practice: 'That's Right': Truth, justice, and the legal consciousness of educational activists, Idit Kostiner; Who manages feminist-inspired reform?: an in-depth look at Title IX coordinators, Judith Taylor; Legal consciousness and workplace rights, Catherine Albiston; LGBT family rights, legal consciousness, and the dilemma of difference, Kimberly D. Richman; Consciousness in context: employees' views of sexual harassment grievance procedures, Anna-Maria Marshall. Part II Contested Rights: On-the-job sexual harassment: how labels enable men to discriminate through sexual harassment and exclusion, Elizabeth A. Hoffmann; The 'Seesaw Effect' from racial profiling to depolicing: toward a critical cultural theory, Frank Rudy Cooper; Keeping rights alive: the struggle for HIV infected prisoners, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner and Jessica Hodge.Part III The Future of Rights Research: When the saints go marching in: legal consciousness and prison experiences of conscientious objectors to military service in Israel, Hadar Aviram; Time, legal consciousness and power: the case of France's 35 work hour workweek laws, J me P`sse; The power of place: public space and rights consciousness, Laura Beth Nielsen; Index.