This paper introduces this Special Number. The work of the Project Group Legal Pluralism at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle aims to continue the rapid expansion of recent decades of studies of legal pluralism. The recently much discussed phenomenon of globalisation has provoked a wide variety of local responses. Encounters are occurring between state laws, transnational laws, customary laws and religious laws, all of which are liable as a result to be transformed by processes of adaptation, appropriation and vulgarisation. This may lead to increasing pluralisation of laws, but can also in some cases produce homogenisation, or de-pluralisation.The notion of ‘law’ should not be limited to state, international and transnational law, but should be used to refer to all those objectified cognitive and normative conceptions for which validity for a certain social formation is authoritatively asserted. Law becomes manifest in many forms, and is comprised of a variety of social ph...

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The dynamics of change and continuity in plural legal orders

Drawing on recent cross-national surveys of the Turkish second generation, we test hypotheses of secularization and of religious vitality for Muslim minorities in Europe. Secularization predicts an inverse relationship between structural integration and religiosity, such that the Turkish second generation would be less religious with higher levels of educational attainment and intermarriage. The religious vitality hypothesis predicts the maintenance of religion in the second generation, highlighting the role of religious socialization within immigrant families and communities. Taking a comparative approach, these hypotheses are tested in the context of different national approaches to the institutionalization of Islam as a minority religion in four European capital cities: Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels and Stockholm. Across contexts, religious socialization strongly predicts second-generation religiosity, in line with religious vitality. The secularization hypothesis finds support only among the se...

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Integration and religiosity among the Turkish second generation in Europe: a comparative analysis across four capital cities

Immigrant cultures are routinely posed as threats to national culture. Particular understandings of immigrant and national cultures underlie cultural politics. Culturalism—conceiving cultures as reified, static, and homogeneous across bounded groups—imbues these understandings. Representations of immigrant and national culture are mutually constituted in policies, state institutions, the media, and everyday perceptions surrounding key categories such as borders, illegality, and the law. Furthermore, coupled with a popular or commonsense structural-functionalism that sees all cultural values and practices as inherently interlinked, many modes of cultural politics are contextually stimulated by anxieties about cultural loss. At critical junctures, certain representations gain powerful roles in cultural politics through synecdoche, when specific symbols stand for an integrated set of cultural attributes. Examples include Muslim head scarves in France and the “ground zero mosque” in the United States. Anthrop...

The Cultural Politics of Nation and Migration

La pluralité familiale en droit interne à l'épreuve de la diversité des institutions familiales étrangères

This book combines an examination of women's rights in Muslim family law in Arab states from the Gulf to North Africa with discussions of the public debates surrounding the issues that are raised in processes of codification and amenement. This study considers new laws along with older statutes to comment on patterns and dynamics of change both in the texts of the laws and in the processes by which they are drafted and issued. It draws on original legal texts as well as on extensive secondary literature for an insight into practice; interventions by women's rights organisations and other parties are drawn on to identify areas of the laws that remain contested. The discussions are set in the contemporary global context that internationalises the domestic and regional discussions.

https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A2732739/view

Women and Muslim Family Laws in Arab States

Country report: Belgium

As individuals travel across borders, societies have become more and more pluralistic. The result of increased migration is the interaction among cultural communities and inevitably clashes between state law and customary law. These cultural conflicts have given rise to a new multicultural jurisprudence. In this volume scholars grapple with the immense challenges judges are currently experiencing everywhere. To what the extent can and should courts accommodate litigants' request by taking their cultural backgrounds into account? This collection brings together powerful examples of the cultural defense in many countries in Western Europe, North America, and elsewhere. It shows the ubiquity of this defense, contrary to the mistaken impression that it has been invoked principally in the United States. This book makes the case for undertaking studies of the use of the cultural defense in jurisdictions all over the world where this has not been previously documented. Many of the essays concentrate on criminal cases including homicide in the context of honour crimes, provocation based on "loss of face" or witchcraft killings. Some deal with other areas of law such as asylum jurisprudence, family law, and housing policy. They show in concrete cases how cultural claims have arisen and how legal systems wrestle with these arguments. It is clear that judges have had considerable difficulty handling many of the cultural claims. The authors demonstrate persuasively the need to reconsider the proper use of cultural evidence in legal proceedings. Those interested in the ways in which expertise influences the disposition of cases will find this book compelling.

Multicultural jurisprudence: comparative perspectives on the cultural defense

Marriages of convenience in Belgium : the punitive approach gains ground in migration law

This paper contributes to the debate on the role of anthropological expertise in the legal sphere by broadening the analytical field of vision. Rather than focusing on the anthropologist, his or her positionality, the epistemic status of anthropological knowledge or the ensuing ethical questions – as the other contributions to this themed section do – we turn the question around. Based on empirical data from a survey conducted among European judges on judiciary practice and sociocultural diversity, our focus here is on the question of how judges perceive, assess and accommodate sociocultural diversity in their daily decision-making. We furthermore investigate the conditions under which external expertise is called upon in specific legal settings and situations. We develop a conceptual argument for rethinking the role of anthropological knowledge and research in legal practice and argue for the need to pursue new forms of collaborative ethnography with judges that go beyond participant observation of their courtroom interactions. Working together with the judges who give decisions on cases, we claim, can provide scope for both critical reflection and applied problem-solving.

Culture all around? : contextualising anthropological expertise in European courtroom settings

In this concluding contribution to the special issue on practices of reasonable accommodation for religion or belief in the workplace, the striking differences and similarities between the six coun...

Marie-Claire Foblets

Papers

Country report: Belgium

Multicultural jurisprudence: comparative perspectives on the cultural defense

Marriages of convenience in Belgium : the punitive approach gains ground in migration law

Culture all around? : contextualising anthropological expertise in European courtroom settings

Freedom of religion and belief in the European workplace: which way forward and what role for the European Union?