The New Civil Rights Research

This book brings together some of the most innovative and important research on civil rights law and legality. Drawing on narratives of individuals from a variety of contexts, the material in this collection allows for rich and contextualized understandings of what happens when law interacts with other competing systems or forms of social organization. By privileging the real world, lived experiences of those most influenced by rights, the collection moves beyond the typically polarizing debates 'for or against' rights. Unlike other research in the field that explicitly critique or defend civil rights law in America, this collection presents a constitutive approach to rights. By focusing on the subjective imaginations of the subjects of rights, the studies collected here reveal a complex picture of rights-consciousness that is not reducible to a simple 'for or against' rights formula. While this complex consciousness 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.