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...

/pdf/the-dynamics-of-change-and-continuity-in-plural-legal-orders-53lak33r3n.pdf

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...

/pdf/integration-and-religiosity-among-the-turkish-second-323wuxbyg0.pdf

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

De strijd tegen ontoelaatbare huwelijken: met welke middelen?

Law and Anthropology

This report is based on 14 country reports namely Iraq, Pakistan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Africa, Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Finland, Greece, and Turkey. It aims at detecting the ways in which claims relating to cultural traditions, ethnic customs, religious convictions, and sexual orientation—or any other kinds of claims that are not officially accommodated in state law—are raised and dealt with in those jurisdictions. The comparison first sets family law in its historical and demographic context, including the implications of mobility and migration as well as of technological and social developments. Secondly it analyzes the actions and reactions of the entities involved, namely the legislature and the judiciary, but also civil society actors. Furthermore, it explores the reactions of the communities concerned and, finally, draws conclusions on some of the challenges that multiculturalism poses to family law today.

Diverse Families: A Challenge to Family Law? A Comparative Exercise

Redesigning Justice for Plural Societies

Migration and integration of third-country nationals in Europe: the need for the development of an efficient, effective and legitimate system of governance

Marie-Claire Foblets

Papers

De strijd tegen ontoelaatbare huwelijken: met welke middelen?

Law and Anthropology

Diverse Families: A Challenge to Family Law? A Comparative Exercise

Redesigning Justice for Plural Societies

Migration and integration of third-country nationals in Europe: the need for the development of an efficient, effective and legitimate system of governance