Enhancing Democratic Habits: An oral history of the Law Centres movement

该项目是对过去50年法律中心发展的深入档案分析和口述历史。它旨在探讨法律案件工作、以社区为基础的战略诉讼、社会运动和公民参与公民领域之间的关系。我们将收集和分析法律中心编制的所有年度报告。还将采用生活故事访谈法收集法律中心积极分子的个人账户。利用先驱和法律中心工作人员的记录和证词，我们将探索推动这些变化的人，这场运动的复杂内部动力，以及法律中心挑战传统法律实践的方式。这项研究将使我们能够反思这种形式的激进律师的成功和失败，包括它带来的问题在今天仍然存在的程度，以及一些已经被吸收到主流法律实践中的“激进”做法的起源。这个项目汇集了一个由社会法律和社区司法学者、口头历史学家和公民社会合作伙伴组成的独特的跨学科团队。这是牛津社会法律研究中心和贝尔法斯特皇后大学在大英图书馆、国家生活故事和法律中心网络的支持下开展的一项合作。这项研究是一个难得的机会，可以根据法律中心对法律和民主制度的影响，根据那些促成这一影响的人的证词来考虑法律中心对法律和民主制度的影响。考虑到早期先驱者的年龄，捕捉该运动先驱的意见尤为紧迫。第一法律中心设立在贫困地区，为那些负担不起法律服务费用的人提供服务。它们涉及福利权利、移民、住房、歧视和家庭暴力等主题领域，这些领域在主流法律教育和实践中被边缘化。法律中心还采取行动，通过案件工作、战略性诉讼和基于社区的运动，实现更广泛的政治和社会变革。他们还拒绝了公认的法律职业的中立性主张，承认那些没有法律资质的人的专业知识，并寻求在没有工作场所等级制度的情况下工作。该项目将使人们更好地了解那些在法律中心工作的人对改变律师观念所作的贡献。这项拟议的工作还具有更广泛的学术和实践意义。关于成熟的自由民主在多大程度上被视为依赖由社会和政治精英运营的机构，而弱势群体感到疏远，当代有相当多的辩论。这引发了人们对新出现的“民主赤字”的危险的广泛辩论，在这种赤字中，公民越来越不参与公共生活。通过关注法律中心的先驱者和活动家的故事、动机和观点，这项研究将考虑法律中心与贫困的当地社区的接触如何促进积极的公民身份。该项目的一个关键目标将是探索从这场运动的许多故事中可以学到什么，这些故事可以为目前解决民主、获得法律、权利制度和社区‘声音’方面的失败的努力提供信息。由研究小组创建和管理的声音和文件档案将为大英图书馆/国家生活故事和法律中心网络收藏的英国当代生活提供宝贵的补充。这些将为对基层社会运动的动态和日常实践感兴趣的学者和公众提供丰富的资源。向法律中心提供口述历史技能和档案管理方面的专家培训和支助也将加强它们在地方一级策划自己的历史的能力。

This project is an in-depth archival analysis and oral history of the development of Law Centres over the past 50 years. It aims to explore the relationship between legal case work, community based strategic litigation, social campaigns and the participation of the citizenry in the civic sphere. We will collect and analyse all the annual reports produced by Law Centres. Life story interview methods will also be employed to gather the personal accounts of Law Centre activists. Using the records and testimony of pioneers and Law Centre workers, we will explore the people who fuelled these changes, the complex internal dynamics of the 'movement' and the ways in which Law Centres challenged conventional legal practice. This research will allow us to reflect on the successes and failures of this form of radical lawyering, including the extent to which the issues it brought to the fore remain live today and the origins of some 'radical' practices that have now been absorbed into mainstream legal practice.This project brings together a unique interdisciplinary team of socio-legal and community justice scholars, oral historians and civil society partners. It is a collaboration between the Oxford Centre of Socio-Legal Studies and Queens University, Belfast, with the support of the British Library, National Life Stories and the Law Centres Network. The research represents a rare opportunity to consider the influence of Law Centres on the legal and democratic system based on the testimony of those who made it happen. Capturing the views of pioneers of the movement is particularly urgent given the ages of the early pioneers.The first Law Centres were established in impoverished areas where they acted for those who could not afford to pay for legal services. They dealt with subject areas, such as welfare rights, immigration, housing, discrimination and domestic violence, which had been marginalised in mainstream legal education and practice. Law Centres also acted to achieve broader political and social change through case work, strategic litigation and community based campaigns. They also rejected the established legal profession's claim to neutrality, recognised the expertise of those without legal qualifications and sought to work without workplace hierarchy. The project will provide greater understanding of the contribution that those who worked in Law Centres made to changing conceptions of lawyering. The proposed work also has much broader scholarly and practical implications. There is considerable contemporary debate about the extent to which mature liberal democracies are seen as relying on institutions run by social and political elites from which the disadvantaged feel remote. This has given rise to widespread debate about the dangers of an emerging 'democratic deficit' in which citizens are increasingly retreating from engaging in public life. By focusing on the stories, motivations and perspectives of pioneers and activists in Law Centres, this research will consider how the engagement of Law Centres with impoverished local communities promoted active citizenship. A key goal of the project will be to explore what can be learnt from the many stories of the movement that could inform current attempts to tackle failures in democracy, access to law, regimes of rights and community 'voice'.The sound and documentary archives created and curated by the research team will provide a valuable addition to collections of British contemporary life held at the British Library/National Life Stories and by the Law Centres Network. These will provide a rich resource for scholars and members of the public interested in the dynamics and everyday practicalities of grass roots social movements. Expert training and support in oral history skills and archival management provided to Law Centres will also enhance their capacity to curate their own histories at a local level.