Page 93 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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64 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

This is in part because socio-legal approaches, legal historians, political scientists, legal
jurisprudence and legal studies articulate sociologists and social anthropologists who
their concerns differently. What is captured study legal issues empirically. These socio-
by these different understandings of law is legal scholars ‘form a clear and cohesive
the tension between a ‘juridical gaze’, which interdisciplinary community’ (Sutton, 2001:
is gained through legal training devoted to 21) called the Law and Society Association in
reading of cases, law reports and searching the United States and the Socio-Legal Studies
for, interpreting and applying legal rules, Association in the UK. This diagram is also
and an inquiring approach which uses sociol- misleading in that it fails to demonstrate the
ogy’s looking glass to see beyond the self- impact of policy oriented research, which is
descriptions of law and the legal profession. more easily funded by government agencies
How this tension has been utilized and to than pure research, on the field (Sarat and
what extent these two images are brought Silbey, 1988). In addition, it does not do jus-
together is discussed in the next section tice to the important role played by legal
where various orientations within the socio- anthropology and political science in the
logical studies of law are discussed. development of the field as a whole. Finally,
it is based on a British view of the sociology
of law in the sense that it sharply distin-
guishes between Socio-Legal Studies and the
PART TWO: SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES sociology of law (Banakar and Travers,
OF LAW 2005; Campbell and Wiles, 1976). Such a
5
division would not apply, for example, to the
The sociological study of law is similar to the Scandinavian situation where there has not
sociologies of medicine and religion in one been a socio-legal movement within the law
respect: it accommodates two ideal typical schools. The diagram shows whether an ori-
approaches to its subject matter, one which is entation is influenced by various social
informed in the first place by the theoretical sciences, but fails to demonstrate that the
concerns and objectives of mainstream soci- concerns of sociology, law and policy influ-
ology and one which reflects the concerns of ence all these orientations, albeit in different
its subject matter, which consists of forms ways and to different degrees. While the
of law and legal behaviour (Banakar, 2000). Sociology of Law and Sociological
For lack of better names, we call the former Jurisprudence are primarily influenced by
‘pure’ and the latter ‘applied’ socio-legal mainstream sociology, Law and Society
research. Each of the ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ Studies and Socio-Legal Studies are influ-
approaches can in turn be divided into differ- enced by both sociology and other social
ent orientations depending on the extent to science disciplines. In the remaining part of
which they are influenced by the concerns of this section I shall briefly describe these
sociology, other social sciences, law or policy. research orientations against the backdrop of
Figure. 5.1 helps to visualize the relationship various debates on law and socio-legal
between these socio-legal orientations. research.
This diagram is, admittedly, misleading in
a number of ways. For example, it fails to
capture the overlap between the four major The sociology of law
research orientations named above and
suggests that it is possible to distinguish The sociology of law distinguishes itself
between the interests of various socio-legal from, for example, philosophy of law or legal
researchers with roots in different disci- history, by fulfilling three interrelated and
plines. In reality, it is often impossible to find broadly defined criteria. Firstly, it borrows its
distinctions between the concerns of some concepts and theoretical frameworks from