Regulating social spaces of everyday life
The bottom-up codification of a behavioural norm in a Dutch municipal bylaw
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1196Keywords:
Juridification, social control, public space, lawmakingAbstract
The utopian ideal of public space promotes it as the material manifestation of a freely accessible realm in which diverse social entities engage with one another to discuss, debate and form an inclusive society. In reality, access to and participation in public space is restricted for various factions of society. In the regulation of public space formal law plays a large, albeit not exclusive, role. Intrinsically formal law is presumed to come from above and beyond, and technically law is indeed emanated top-down by legislative authorities. The initiative to law however can originate from elsewhere. The case study presented here offers an example of law being enterprised from within, as a bottom-up strategy to claim dominance over a shared space and an attempt to block access to competing factions. Law then is wielded as a vertical power strategy between citizens, in which government has to struggle not to be reduced to an instrument in the hands of the elite. The case narrates the attempt of residents to have a municipal ban on using cannabis installed on a small inner-city playground in Amsterdam. This article aims to contribute to literature on juridification of social relations, the production of space and the making of law.
Downloads
Metrics
Global Statistics ℹ️
|
663
Views
|
1173
Downloads
|
|
1836
Total
|
|
References
Becker, H.S., 1997. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: The Free Press. (Originally published in 1963).
Blichner, L.C., and Molander, A., 2008. Mapping juridification. European Law Journal, 14(1), 36–54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2007.00405.x
Blokland, T.V., 2008. Oog voor elkaar: Veiligheidsbeleving en sociale controle in de grote stad. Amsterdam University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5117/9789089640437
Blokland, T.V., 2009. Het belang van publieke familiariteit in de openbare ruimte. Tijdschrift voor beleid, politiek en maatschappij, 36(3), 183–191.
Blom, T., and Büller, N., 2011. Gebruik is niet strafbaar gesteld in de Opiumwet. Nederlands Juristenblad [online], 86(37), 2511–2514. Available from: https://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.407522 [Accessed 2 December 2020].
Brouwer, J.G., and Schilder, A.E., 2011. Noot bij: Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak. (2011, Juli 13). AB, 2011-, 250, 1483–1485.
Chevalier, D.A.M., 2015a. Playing it by the rules: Local bans on the public use of soft drugs and the production of shared spaces of everyday life. PhD, University of Amsterdam.
Chevalier, D.A.M., 2015b. “You Are Not From Around Here, Are You”: Getting Othered In Participant Observations. Contributions From European Symbolic Interactionists: Reflections On Methods [online], 44, 1-17. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-239620150000044002 [Accessed 2 December 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-239620150000044002
Chevalier, D.A.M., 2017. Truth or tale? The production, selection and interpretation of “evidence” informing municipal policy on public use of soft drugs. In: A. O’Gorman et al., eds., Evidence in Social Drug Research and Drug Policy. Lengerich: Pabst Science, 85-98.
Deflem, M., 1996. Introduction: Law in Habermas’ theory of communicative action. In: M. Deflem, ed., Habermas, Modernity and Law. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage.
Fisher, C., 1982. To dwell among friends: personal networks in town and city. Chicago: Chicago University Press
Flyvberg, B., 2004. Five misunderstandings about case-study research. In: C. Seale et al., eds., Qualitative Research Practice. London/Thousand Oaks: Sage, 420–434. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781848608191.d33
Goffman, E., 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre.
Goffman, E., 1966. Behavior in Public Places: Notes on Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press. (Originally published in 1963).
Habermas, J., 1987. The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume 2. Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Trans.: T. McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Lefebvre, H., 1991. The Production of Space. Trans.: D. Nicholson-Smith. Malden/Oxford/Carlton: Blackwell Publishing.
Lofland, L.H., 1985. A world of strangers: order and action in urban public space. Reprint ed. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press. (Originally published in 1973).
Lofland, L.H., 1998. The Public Realm: Exploring the City’s Quintessential Social Territory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Madanipour, A., 2005. Public and Private Spaces of the City. London/New York: Routledge.
Magnussen, A.M., and Banasiak, A., 2013. Juridification: Disrupting the relationship between law and politics? European Law Journal [online], 19(3), 325–339. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12026 [Accessed 2 December 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12026
Mennes, R., et al., 2019. Coffeeshops in Nederland 2018: Aantallen coffeeshops en gemeentelijk beleid 1999-2018 [online]. Report. The Hague: WODC, Ministerie van Justitie en Veiligheid. July. Available from: https://www.breuerintraval.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/3060A_volledige-tekst_tcm28-405061.pdf [Accessed 2 December 2020].
Milgram, S. (with T. Blass, ed.,) 1977. The Individual in a Social World: Essays and Experiments. Reading/ Menlo Park: Addison-Wesley.
Molotch, H., 1993. The space of Lefebvre. Theory and Society [online], 22(6), 887–895. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993685 [Accessed 2 December 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993685
Schuyt, C.J.M., 1997. Bronnen van juridisering en hun confluentie. Nederlands Juristenblad. Special: Juridisering, 2, 925–930.
Sennett, R., 1992. The Fall of Public Man. New York/London: W.W. Norton.
Tellegen, E., 2008. Het utopisme van de drugsbestrijding. Amsterdam: Mets & Schilt.
Teubner, G., ed., 1987. Juridification of Social Spheres: A Comparative Analysis in the Areas of Labor, Corporate, Antitrust and Social Welfare Law. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110921472
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Danielle Chevalier
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
OSLS strictly respects intellectual property rights and it is our policy that the author retains copyright, and articles are made available under a Creative Commons licence. The Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution No-Derivatives licence is our default licence and it regulates how others can use your work. Further details available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 If this is not acceptable to you, please contact us.
The non-exclusive permission you grant to us includes the rights to disseminate the bibliographic details of the article, including the abstract supplied by you, and to authorise others, including bibliographic databases, indexing and contents alerting services, to copy and communicate these details.
For information on how to share and store your own article at each stage of production from submission to final publication, please read our Self-Archiving and Sharing policy.
The Copyright Notice showing the author and co-authors, and the Creative Commons license will be displayed on the article, and you must agree to this as part of the submission process. Please ensure that all co-authors are properly attributed and that they understand and accept these terms.
