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This book argues that the dominant descriptions of the ‘caste system'are rooted in the Western Christian experience of India. Thus, caste studies tell us more about the West than about India. It further demonstrates the imperative to move beyond this scholarship in order to generate descriptions of Indian social reality. The dominant descriptions of the ‘caste system'that we have today are results of originally Christian themes and questions. The authors of this collection show how this hypothesis can be applied beyond South Asia to the diasporic cultures that have made a home in Western countries, and how the inheritance of caste studies as structured by European scholarship impacts on our understanding of contemporary India and the Indians of the diaspora. This collection will be of interest to scholars and students of caste studies, India studies, religion in South Asia, postcolonial studies, history, anthropology and sociology.

Legal Practice and Cultural Diversity considers how contemporary cultural and religious diversity challenges legal practice, how legal practice responds to that challenge, and how practice is changing in the encounter with the cultural diversity occasioned by large-scale, post-war immigration. Locating actual practices and interpretations which occur in jurisprudence and in public discussion, this volume examines how the wider environment shapes legal processes and is in turn shaped by them. In so doing, the work foregrounds a number of themes principally relating to changing norms and practices and sensitivity to cultural and religious difference in the application of the law. Comparative in approach, this study places particular cases in their widest context, taking into account international and transnational influences on the way in which actors, legal and other, respond.

This book discusses the salience of the caste question in UK law. It provides the background to how the caste provision came into the Equality Act 2010 and how it was reinforced in 2013, and analyses the various interests that played a role in getting caste into law.

This collection discusses how official legal systems do and should respond to the reality of a plurality of family types and origins within their jurisdictions. It further examines the challenges that arise for practitioners, including lawyers and judges, when faced with such plurality. Focussing on empirical research, the volume presents legal and sociological data of unprecedented comparative depth. It also includes a discussion of how members of minority families respond to the need to organise their legal relationships, and to resolve their disputes in the shadow of official legal systems which differ from those of their familial and communal traditions. The work invites reflection, and demonstrates the urgency and complexity of the questions regarding the search for justice in the field of family life in Europe today.

The large-scale establishment of ethnic minorities and diasporic communities in Europe has gained the attention of social science scholars for a number of decades now. However, legal interest in this field has remained relatively underdeveloped, and few scholars have addressed emerging legal issues to any significant degree. This collection of contributions by leading writers in the field of ethnic migration and diaspora studies therefore provides some important interdisciplinary perspectives of how ethnic/diasporic minorities in British and European contexts interact with the official legal system. This volume makes a significant contribution in assessing the role of law in current debates on the integration of ethnic and religious minorities of migrant origin in the EU. The chapters derive from papers first delivered at a lecture series on ‘Cultural Diversity and Law'at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. The contributors'disciplinary interests range across law, anthropology, sociology, geography and political theory, and each one addresses the issues within his or her field of study by adopting approaches that place law within its wider social and political context. The topics covered range from a number of ‘public'and ‘private'law issues as well as the more conceptual realms of jurisprudence. They include marriage laws, approaches to dispute resolution, the role of courts and juries in the criminal justice system, drugs policies and the criminalisation of minorities, free speech and blasphemy, planning laws and the construction of religious buildings, composition of the judiciary, the normative foundations of cultural diversity in law, and integration and law. The compilation should therefore attract an interest beyond its core readership in law, making legal issues accessible to a whole range of students and policy makers within the social sciences.

At a time when issues concerning migration and the formation of diasporic communities have come to be critical for all European legal systems, this volume reflects, discusses and analyzes the questions raised by diasporas who have established themselves in Europe over more than fifty years of immigration and the challenges faced by legal systems in the light of continued migration. Contributors from a broad range of backgrounds address prominent issues ranging from legal pluralism among minorities, pressures on EU accession states, irregular migration, state control of family reunification and formation in light of human rights laws, challenges for citizenship and nationality laws and the implementation of visa rules and juxtaposed control zones. Besides the EU as a supranational legal order, the book contains discussion of conditions in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Greece, Turkey and Lithuania.This volume accompanies The Challenge of Asylum to Legal Systems and is the second book to emerge from the W.G Hart Legal Workshop held in 2004 at London's Institute for Advanced Legal Studies.

A collection of papers presenting critical perspectives in the development of asylum law with a focus on European and UK developments, incorporating international human rights law and comparative law perspectives. Issues covered range from law-making at the EU level, with a particular focus on extra-territorial processing of refugees claims, asylum procedures, family members of those in need of protection, welfare benefits and impact of national level on the reception of EU norms. Domestic and comparative perspectives offered include discussions on detention, judicial decision-making, appeal rights, claims processing with particular reference to the role of interpreters and developments in Australia which have provided a model of thought worthy of emulation in the UK.

Legal Pluralism in Conflict offers a new theoretical perspective for conceptualising and analysing the relationship between ethnic minority laws and the official legal order.Examining the limits of liberal legal thought in light of a contemporary plurality of ethnic identifications and religious beliefs, Prakash Shah takes up the case for a'legal pluralism'that views ethnic minority laws in interaction with the official British legal order. This form of legal pluralism is not, however, without conflict. This book pursues a series of case studies that critically consider why and how state laws marginalise ethnic minority legal orders. Legal Pluralism in Conflict contains discussions of the recognition of polygamous marriages, homicide, the expertise provided in immigration cases and the legal discourse of nationality. It is in this engagement with some of the most challenging issues posed by the diverse character of modern society that its author sets out an alternative course for ethnic minority legal studies.Legal Pluralism in Conflict will be invaluable to students and researchers concerned with law's relationship to and treatment of ethnic and religious diversity, as well as to those with wider interests in the limits and possibilities of political pluralism.