A socio-legal perspective on climate resilience can help to get a better understanding of the role of state and non-state actors, policies and legal frameworks in everyday practices of resilience. This blog introduces the socio-legal perspective, presents legal pluralism as a key concept, and suggests some questions for further exploration.
Introduction
As Climares, we study climate resilience within diverse governance contexts. We are interested in understanding ways in which people and societies are able to bounce back from (environmental) shocks. Yet, what people and societies can or cannot do to bounce back, is - to some extent - shaped, facilitated and sometimes hindered by legal rules or restrictions and by policy frameworks. To get a good understanding of resilience within different governance contexts, a socio-legal perspective can be of help. This can subsequently help to explore a more normative question that may follow from this, namely: How can we improve policy and legal frameworks to better support people in their efforts to deal with climate change? This contributes to the mission of Climares to support the agency and resilience of communities.
This blog sets out the meaning of a socio-legal perspective and what it can add to our understanding of climate resilience in diverse African contexts. In the following, I first set out what this perspective entails, before applying it to climate resilience. I end the blog with a number of more specific questions and topics that may be explored from this perspective.
What is a socio-legal perspective?
Socio-legal scholars are interested in understanding the functioning of both state and non-state forms of normative ordering. They look at formal legislation, but also at informal norms, and rules by non-state authorities, such as traditional authorities, civil society actors, humanitarian aid providers, religious organisations etc. Whereas legal scholars usually focus on law in the books, socio-legal scholars combine an understanding of these laws in the books with ‘law in action’ (Calavita 2016). What does the law ‘do’ to people? How are legal norms crafted, interpreted, negotiated, contested, and experienced by different actors? For this, it makes sense to look at the different institutions that are involved in executing laws and policies, to look into the legitimacy of actors, to understand power relations between authorities, and between authorities and citizens. Socio-legal scholars combine legal analysis with insights from other disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, geography and political sciences.
Legal pluralism as a ‘sensitizing and analytical tool’
A key concept within the field of socio-legal studies is legal pluralism, often defined as ‘a situation in which two or more legal systems coexist in the same social field (Merry 1988). Legal systems in turn, are defined broadly and include both state and non-state ‘forms of normative ordering’ (ibid). As a ‘sensitising and analytical tool’ (Von Benda-Beckmann 2002), legal pluralism helps us to gain a more thorough and in-depth understanding of the complexities of norms, rules and institutions that impact on people’s everyday lives. It also allows us to see how these normative orders interact, overlap, or compete with each other. Traditionally, legal pluralism scholars have often paid attention to the co-existence of state laws with customary or traditional laws, but it has broader relevance. It could for instance also be used as a lens to look into the co-existence of global legal frameworks, such as human rights frameworks or climate conventions and the way in which they relate to everyday societal norms. By broadening the scope of law to ‘normative orders’ that are not necessarily made by the state, legal pluralism enables us to include non-state actors in our analysis as crucial actors that determine the organization of everyday life.
Studying climate resilience from a socio-legal perspective in practice
Applied to climate resilience, this perspective invites us to look beyond formal adaptation policies and ask how resilience is shaped through governance arrangements, institutional relationships, structural inequalities, and struggles over resources and decision-making. Who gets to define what resilience means? Whose vulnerabilities are recognized, and whose are overlooked? How do legal and policy frameworks enable some forms of adaptation while constraining others? Who is included in the development of national adaptation plans for instance? And how do communities navigate, resist, or reshape the legal structures that govern responses to climate risks? Who are the non-state actors that play a role in everyday adaptation? In more concrete terms, it could mean for instance studying informal norms through which farmers obtain access to land in a new location that is less prone to floods than their current lands. It could be about understanding regulations in the fishery sector and assessing to what extent current regulations are still adequate when fisherfolks are forced to change their methods of fishing because the size of the catch is becoming smaller.
By foregrounding these questions, socio-legal studies broadens our understanding of climate resilience. It reminds us that resilience is not simply a matter of surviving environmental shocks but also a question of justice, authority, participation, and power.
Towards increased resilience
Climares is interested not only in understanding climate threats for at-risk populations. It has the ambition to eventually address these threats and to make a positive contribution towards increased resilience. Having a better understanding of vulnerabilities and of the enabling or disabling normative orders can be of help in developing better-tailored policies and legal frameworks, that are sensitive towards the inequalities and injustices that specific population groups face. For example, if unprecedented levels of heat are not anticipated, there may be little impetus to develop legislation protecting outdoor workers. Yet when such heatwaves occur, insights into how outdoor workers respond to extreme heat in practice can provide a valuable basis for legislation that is both realistic and responsive to their lived experiences.
This blog invites researchers from across disciplines to bring their own expertise into dialogue with the socio-legal questions raised above, fostering more holistic approaches to strengthening climate resilience.
About the author:
Carolien Jacobs is academic coordinator of Climares, based at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society, at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She is a socio-legal and development scholar.
Tags: socio-legal studies, legal pluralism, climate resilience