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Ethnic Plurality and Law

• Why and when do marriages which can be identified as "forced" occur? To what extent is legislation designed to classify such practices as a criminal offence likely to resolve the underlying issues? - by Roger Ballard and Fauzia Ahmed

  An anthropologically informed response to the Forced Marriage Consultation document issued by the Home Office in December 2011

• Transgressive initiatives ’from below’ and the defensive reinforcement of jurisdictional boundaries - by Roger Ballard

  This paper explores the logic, the dialectics and arguments deployed to legitimisate process of boundary construction in the current phase of globalisation, most particularly with respect to the issue of migrant management. In addition to suggesting that the grounds on which these initiatives are routinely legitimated as unjustified as they are self-seving, the article also suggests that close examination of those grounds also serves to illuminate just how and why it is that indigenous Euro-Americans are having such difficulty in coming to terms with the structure of the global order which is emerging as the third phase of globalization begins to crystallize.

• Honour Killing? Or just plain Homicide? - by Roger Ballard

  This paper explores the the illuminative value of expert anthropololical evidence, as well challenges encountered in providing it, in cases of the most serious crime in the book: homicide. Focused on five detailed case studies of of incidents of homicidal violence in South Asian families, it questions the analytical and forensic utility of the concept of 'honour killing' in contexts of this kind.

• Human Rights in Contexts of Ethnic Plurality: Always a Vehicle for Liberation? - by Roger Ballard
  This paper explores the Euro-centric foundations of the contemporary discouse of 'universal' human rights, and examines the ways in which its provisions can be - and are being - deployed as a means of placing those who have the temerity to order their families around alternative premises are being legitimately subjected to systematic disadvantage.

• Ethnic Diversity and the Delivery of Justice: the challenge of plurality - by Roger Ballard
  A review of my experience of acting as an expert anthropological witness in a wide range of legal proceedings, and of the wide range of challenges which issues of ethnic plurality have begun to pose for the equitable delivery of justice.

• Common Law and Common Sense: Juries, Justice and the Challenge of Ethnic Plurality- by Roger Ballard
  An exploration of the changing ways in which evidence about the cultural context within which the events in contention have been brought before courts operating in the English tradition of common law, leading to a close examination of the contradictions surrounding the prospect of introducing expert anthropological evidence under the contemporary expert witness regime.

• Law, the State and the Maintenance of Socio-cultural order - by Roger Ballard

  As currently practiced in the courts, contemporary Euro-American jurisprudence has for the most part become a matter of the application of state-sponsored regulatory black letter law. This has had two major consequences. On the one hand the legal system has become less and less concerned with arbitration and dispute settlement – activities which are now frequently hived off elsewhere; and on the other hand the ever growing force of regulatory initiatives has rendered ‘the law’ less and less tolerant of diversity, despite the fact the populations subject to its jurisdiction are becoming steadily more plural in character.
  This paper seeks to explore the significance of these developments from both a comparative and a historical perspective.

• Analytical Vocabularies in Anthropology, Law and Religion: Time for a rethink? - by Roger Ballard

  Presented at a RELIGARE Conference at Queen Mary' University, London, 24th June 2010.

• Coping with Super-Diversity in Law: Thoughts on the British Scene - by Prakash Shah

  This paper examines the confused and often uncertain ways in which English Law has responded to the growing salience of religious diversity in the UK. Whilst acknowledging that significant legislative advances have been made on some fronts, he also highlights the courts contrary tendency to respond 'jurispathically' to issues of religious diversity in many others.

• The Logic of Cremation in Indic Contexts: An Anthropological Analysis - by Roger Ballard

  An expert report prepared for use in a Judicial Review of the Newcastle City Council's interpretation of the 1902 Cremation Act, and its consequent decision that not to allow open pyre cremations conducted according to Hindu rites to be performed within its jurisdiction.

• Three further Addenda to the above- by Roger Ballard

• Ethnic And Religious Diversity In Britain: Where Are We Going? - by Prakash Shah

  This paper was first presented at a workshop on ‘Equality and Diversity’ in September 2008. It explores some questions of anti-discrimination law currently in operation in Britain. Problematising the background to and interpretation of Race Relations legislation, and proposes the adoption of a more plurality conscious approach to its framing and interpretation by legal actors. It further argues that drafters of the legislation have not been clear about the conceptual underpinnings of the law and what role the law could realistically play in the field of ethnic and religious diversities, and examines some of the case law emerging under the legislation.

• Globalization and the Challenge of Asian Legal Transplants in Europe - by Prakash Shah

  This article reviews the main patterns of Asian migration to Europe and the ways in which Europe today has become multicultured with Afro-Asian legal diversities. It discusses the limited role which Asian states have played in these processes of emigration and settlement. It further examines the status of the laws transplanted by Asian migrants and their descendants in Europe and the ways in which Asian diasporas in Europe are engaging in new hybrid patterns of socio-legal navigation and reconstruction. The article is critical of European legal orders as not having reacted adequately to these patterns of Asian legal reconstruction but also urges Asian legal scholars to investigate this under explored field in more detail.

• When, why and how far should legal systems take cognizance of cultural diversity?- by Roger Ballard
  Presented at a Conference on Justice and Human Values in Europe, this paper explores the circumstances in which, and the grounds on which established European legal systems might be expected to take cognizance of the ever greater presence of religious and ethnic plurality of the populations over which they exercise jurisdiction, and also seeks to highlight the likely negative consequences of a failure to make an adequate response to the challenge of plurality.

• Pakistan's Crisis of Legitimacy - by Roger Ballard
  Prepared for an Immigration Law Practioner's Association Conference, this paper explores the way in which the religious right has taken advantage of the doubtful legitimacy of Pakistan's success regimes, both civilian and military, to engineer itself into a position where it is able to mount a constant critique of state authority. In the course of so doing it has steadily undermine the capacity of civil institutions to challenge its narrow, authoritarian, and in demographic terms largely unpopular agenda. As a result members of all those groups whose agendas differ from that of the neo-fundamentalists, especially in terms of gender and religion, currently find themselves under ever more vigorous attacks, from which the properly constituted authorities are either able or willing to offer them adequate protection.

• Postmodern Hindu Law - by Dr. Werner Menski
  Based on indological and legal scholarship, this study explores to what extent Hindu law, as a conceptual entity and a legal system, is visibly and invisibly present in contemporary Indian law-making. Rejecting the agenda of hindutva and its opponents as too narrow and politically motivated, the present study presents a holistic view of Hindu legal systems and concepts and their contemporary and future relevance.

• South Asian Muslim Law Today - by Dr. Werner Menski
  This article explores the complex ways in which ideas and practices drawn from the shari'a, as well as those embedded in local custom and practice have been incorporated into the nominally positivistic legal systems of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

• Immigration and multiculturalism in Britain: New issues in research and policy - by Dr. Werner Menski
  This paper is a revised and enlarged version of a lecture delivered at Osaka University of Foreign Studies, during the course of Dr. Menski's tenure as a Visiting Professor at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. It provides a wide-ranging overview of the challenges for social policy currently being thrown up within Britain's ever more plural social order.

• Culture and Communication - by Roger Ballard
  Prepared for the Judicial Studies Board, but eventually published only in a severely truncated form, this paper (the full original version) explores the challenges which linguistic and cultural plurality generate for the equitable delivery of justice in the UK.

• Bangladeshis in English Law - by Dr. Prakash Shah
  This article begins with a conceptualization, in legal-pluralist and agency-oriented terms, of the legal implications of the Bangladeshi presence in Britain. It then examines how immigration restrictions, introduced particularly in the 1980s, were aimed at preventing the settlement of Bangladeshis. There is then discussion of how some concrete legal problems have been considered in actual court decisions. The article thereby considers the extent to which English law maintains a largely ethno-centrist perspective vis-à-vis the Bangladeshi presence.

• Common Law and Un-common sense - by Roger Ballard
  An examination of the practical and conceptual differences which arise when juries are invited to apply their common sense in assessing reasonable behaviour in the midst of an ethnically plural society.

• Immigration Law and polygamy - by Dr. Prakash Shah
  This article documents and discusses recent developments in English Law towards polygamy.

• Expert opinions on South Asian laws: their relevance in immigration cases - by Dr. Prakash Shah.

• Preliminary reflections on teaching about ethnic minorities in law - by Dr. Prakash Shah.