New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, 2016
This paper will explore matters of alienation in personal mobility. It begins by outlining the pr... more This paper will explore matters of alienation in personal mobility. It begins by outlining the present car system that dominates and has led to transport becoming an increasingly large issue terms of sustainability. The car system will then be located within the process of reification, an approach to alienation that identifies the car as a capitalist commodity pushed onto ordinary people. The paper will go on to explore the legacy that these developments have had on the twenty-first century landscape with cities made for cars and a countryside rendered car dependant. Possible alternatives to overcome the current car system will be identified, paying specific regard to schemes in Finland and Wales. The paper suggests that mobility should be construed as a common right and that there is a need to see past the current car system.
This paper applies Marx’ theory of alienation to the work of criminal legal aid lawyers to sugges... more This paper applies Marx’ theory of alienation to the work of criminal legal aid lawyers to suggest that the lawyers might be best understood as alienated workers. It reports findings from an ethnographic study of the lawyer-client relationship in England and Wales whereby lawyers were seen to take a diminished professional role characterised by the routine processing of guilty pleas wherein lawyers lost respect for themselves as well as the clients they worked for. The concept of alienation is put forward as a valuable analytical tool for understanding this vision of a substandard legal practice, which may have potential for moving forward future debates on whether the lawyer-client relationship serves access to justice and, if not, how it might be improved to better do so.
This paper develops a typology of murder ballads to inform and assist legal scholars in engaging ... more This paper develops a typology of murder ballads to inform and assist legal scholars in engaging with this form of literature. Murder ballads are songs about death and killing, originating in seventeenth-century Europe thereon forming the bedrock of American folk, blues and country music from around the late nineteenth century onwards. This is a sub-genre of music explicitly focused on murder and, as such, presents a form of popular culture of great relevance to legal scholars, especially those with an interest in crime and justice. To date, legal scholarship has not given proper attention to murder ballads despite the vibrancy of the law and literature movement. This paper offers a call to rectify this dearth, following the law in literature approach of gaining insight into the human condition that can thereon be used to improve understanding of how law and society interact. The paper draws out a central theme of these murder ballads that speaks to a strong gender role in the narra...
This paper discusses the centrality of the automobile to experiencing modern life. Access to a ca... more This paper discusses the centrality of the automobile to experiencing modern life. Access to a car is considered essential to access vital services and, as such, automobile usage plays a crucial role in commoning. However, this is said to draw lines of inclusion and exclusion premised on financial status, which particularly excludes those in rural areas. Such issues are especially acute at a time when electric cars are being promoted as a sustainable transport, which actually contains the potential to further marginalize the less affluent, rendering matters of access questions of class. The paper concludes by suggesting that more attention need be given to alternatives from private car ownership, focusing on communal usages.
Access to justice in England and Wales has been undermined by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punis... more Access to justice in England and Wales has been undermined by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. These cuts to legal aid came as part of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government’s austerity programme and they represent part of a deeper legacy of antipathy towards state funding of legal services over recent decades. This socio-legal paper draws on interviews across four case studies with those on the frontline of the legal aid sector to draw out the implications of the LASPO cuts, and the wider disdain of successive governments for legal aid, for social welfare law. Vulnerability theory is used to highlight the importance of the legal aid scheme and the threat posed by the cuts. The paper makes an argument that access to justice is a cause that needs to be championed for the good of all in society. Keywords: access to justice; legal aid; social welfare law; austerity; vulnerability.
International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 2021
This paper explores legal need and legal advice in England and Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic... more This paper explores legal need and legal advice in England and Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic. It uses the lens of vulnerability theory to examine the ways in which this crisis exposed pre-existing fragilities between the state and its relationship with the advice sector, and the individuals who experience social welfare problems. The paper commences by exploring Fineman’s vulnerability thesis and its application to those experiencing social welfare-related issues, as well as the vulnerability of the systems operating to give advice. The paper then considers the specific context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on needs, and the ability of the sector to meet these needs. Drawing on policy documents, reports and three case studies from law centres in England and Wales, it discusses the concept of legal need and the realities being experienced. These case studies assist us in being able to critically consider the topics of vulnerability, changing needs and the role that tec...
This article considers electric cars as socio-technical experiments in meeting mobility requireme... more This article considers electric cars as socio-technical experiments in meeting mobility requirements. There have been numerous trials and government incentives to promote such vehicles, but with a notable lack of success. The article thus seeks to address an urgent need to understand such “transition failure,” which may ultimately impact upon how progress is measured in sociotechnical transitions. Presenting results from a recent research project, it is suggested that shared usage models hold greater potential for achieving sustainable personal mobility. It is concluded, however, that multiple niche experiments present a highly complex situation in which cumulative learning is problematic.
This article marries two sets of independently gathered empirical data (observation and interview... more This article marries two sets of independently gathered empirical data (observation and interviews) to argue that English criminal defence lawyers currently present as alienated workers. We seek to revive and revisit theories of alienation that are grounded in Marxism and use them as a lens through which lawyers’ behaviour can be viewed and understood. Building on a Marxist application of alienation, we offer a refined analysis premised upon a contemporary understanding of how alienation plays out in criminal defence work during the neoliberal era. We highlight that the way lawyers talk about their roles suggests that they have lost a sense of purpose, and feel powerless and undervalued. We argue that those feelings appear to have developed as a result of structural change—most notably funding cuts and demands for efficiency—which seem to be grounded in what can broadly be understood as neoliberal political ideology and austerity measures. We further suggest that such structural cha...
This article argues for the establishment of a Mobility Bill of Rights. That the current car syst... more This article argues for the establishment of a Mobility Bill of Rights. That the current car system is not sustainable in environmental terms has been much discussed in academic circles and is increasingly accepted in wider society, as reflected by governmental attempts at reform. The current trend for remodeling this car system largely involves the substitution of petrol/diesel for potentially more ecologically sound methods of powering the vehicles such as electricity. Attempts to reach environmental sustainability in this manner do little to impact social or economic sustainability and thus will fail to address the triple bottom line. Rather, reliance on automobiles in the present vein may continue trends for mobility-related exclusion. To tackle this, we need a debate on how the transport needs of ordinary people can be met.
This paper offers a timely investigation into access to justice in rural areas through place-base... more This paper offers a timely investigation into access to justice in rural areas through place-based research. The paper reports an empirical study designed to gain the local knowledge and personal experience of one particular group of rural dwellers in the hope that it might help encourage a wider discussion on access to rural justice. The research has been conducted within the wider socio-political context of austerity that provides a challenge to public-sector service delivery in general, alongside the particular legal impact of budget cuts on the provision of justice, with closures of large amounts of courts, the decline in legal aid provision and reductions in police numbers. Such are important issues for England and Wales as a whole, meaning that this research is contemporary and represents one of the first academic studies to specifically deal with the impact of austerity on access to justice. The value of this research is further heightened with its focus on the specific rural...
This book examines the state of access to criminal justice by considering the health of the lawye... more This book examines the state of access to criminal justice by considering the health of the lawyer-client relationship under legal aid. In the largest study of its kind for some two decades, ethnographic fieldwork is used to gain a fresh perspective upon the interaction that lies at the heart of the criminal justice system's equality of arms. The research produces two contradictory messages; in interview, lawyers claim a positive relationship with their clients while, under participant observation, there emerges quite the opposite. Paying more heed to what was seen than what was said, it is supposed that these lawyers were able to talk the talk but not walk the walk. The lawyers treat their clients with wanton disrespect; making fun of them, talking over them and pushing them to plead guilty – despite protestations to the contrary. The evidence is damning for this branch of the legal profession – and tragic for the clients who depend on them. What is responsible for this malaise…inadequate financial remuneration? Increased time pressures? Lapsed ethical training? Whatever the origin, this book is intended to show the profession that there is a problem – one that could get worse unless they choose to learn from the mistakes made by the lawyers in this study
New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, 2016
This paper will explore matters of alienation in personal mobility. It begins by outlining the pr... more This paper will explore matters of alienation in personal mobility. It begins by outlining the present car system that dominates and has led to transport becoming an increasingly large issue terms of sustainability. The car system will then be located within the process of reification, an approach to alienation that identifies the car as a capitalist commodity pushed onto ordinary people. The paper will go on to explore the legacy that these developments have had on the twenty-first century landscape with cities made for cars and a countryside rendered car dependant. Possible alternatives to overcome the current car system will be identified, paying specific regard to schemes in Finland and Wales. The paper suggests that mobility should be construed as a common right and that there is a need to see past the current car system.
This paper applies Marx’ theory of alienation to the work of criminal legal aid lawyers to sugges... more This paper applies Marx’ theory of alienation to the work of criminal legal aid lawyers to suggest that the lawyers might be best understood as alienated workers. It reports findings from an ethnographic study of the lawyer-client relationship in England and Wales whereby lawyers were seen to take a diminished professional role characterised by the routine processing of guilty pleas wherein lawyers lost respect for themselves as well as the clients they worked for. The concept of alienation is put forward as a valuable analytical tool for understanding this vision of a substandard legal practice, which may have potential for moving forward future debates on whether the lawyer-client relationship serves access to justice and, if not, how it might be improved to better do so.
This paper develops a typology of murder ballads to inform and assist legal scholars in engaging ... more This paper develops a typology of murder ballads to inform and assist legal scholars in engaging with this form of literature. Murder ballads are songs about death and killing, originating in seventeenth-century Europe thereon forming the bedrock of American folk, blues and country music from around the late nineteenth century onwards. This is a sub-genre of music explicitly focused on murder and, as such, presents a form of popular culture of great relevance to legal scholars, especially those with an interest in crime and justice. To date, legal scholarship has not given proper attention to murder ballads despite the vibrancy of the law and literature movement. This paper offers a call to rectify this dearth, following the law in literature approach of gaining insight into the human condition that can thereon be used to improve understanding of how law and society interact. The paper draws out a central theme of these murder ballads that speaks to a strong gender role in the narra...
This paper discusses the centrality of the automobile to experiencing modern life. Access to a ca... more This paper discusses the centrality of the automobile to experiencing modern life. Access to a car is considered essential to access vital services and, as such, automobile usage plays a crucial role in commoning. However, this is said to draw lines of inclusion and exclusion premised on financial status, which particularly excludes those in rural areas. Such issues are especially acute at a time when electric cars are being promoted as a sustainable transport, which actually contains the potential to further marginalize the less affluent, rendering matters of access questions of class. The paper concludes by suggesting that more attention need be given to alternatives from private car ownership, focusing on communal usages.
Access to justice in England and Wales has been undermined by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punis... more Access to justice in England and Wales has been undermined by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. These cuts to legal aid came as part of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government’s austerity programme and they represent part of a deeper legacy of antipathy towards state funding of legal services over recent decades. This socio-legal paper draws on interviews across four case studies with those on the frontline of the legal aid sector to draw out the implications of the LASPO cuts, and the wider disdain of successive governments for legal aid, for social welfare law. Vulnerability theory is used to highlight the importance of the legal aid scheme and the threat posed by the cuts. The paper makes an argument that access to justice is a cause that needs to be championed for the good of all in society. Keywords: access to justice; legal aid; social welfare law; austerity; vulnerability.
International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 2021
This paper explores legal need and legal advice in England and Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic... more This paper explores legal need and legal advice in England and Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic. It uses the lens of vulnerability theory to examine the ways in which this crisis exposed pre-existing fragilities between the state and its relationship with the advice sector, and the individuals who experience social welfare problems. The paper commences by exploring Fineman’s vulnerability thesis and its application to those experiencing social welfare-related issues, as well as the vulnerability of the systems operating to give advice. The paper then considers the specific context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on needs, and the ability of the sector to meet these needs. Drawing on policy documents, reports and three case studies from law centres in England and Wales, it discusses the concept of legal need and the realities being experienced. These case studies assist us in being able to critically consider the topics of vulnerability, changing needs and the role that tec...
This article considers electric cars as socio-technical experiments in meeting mobility requireme... more This article considers electric cars as socio-technical experiments in meeting mobility requirements. There have been numerous trials and government incentives to promote such vehicles, but with a notable lack of success. The article thus seeks to address an urgent need to understand such “transition failure,” which may ultimately impact upon how progress is measured in sociotechnical transitions. Presenting results from a recent research project, it is suggested that shared usage models hold greater potential for achieving sustainable personal mobility. It is concluded, however, that multiple niche experiments present a highly complex situation in which cumulative learning is problematic.
This article marries two sets of independently gathered empirical data (observation and interview... more This article marries two sets of independently gathered empirical data (observation and interviews) to argue that English criminal defence lawyers currently present as alienated workers. We seek to revive and revisit theories of alienation that are grounded in Marxism and use them as a lens through which lawyers’ behaviour can be viewed and understood. Building on a Marxist application of alienation, we offer a refined analysis premised upon a contemporary understanding of how alienation plays out in criminal defence work during the neoliberal era. We highlight that the way lawyers talk about their roles suggests that they have lost a sense of purpose, and feel powerless and undervalued. We argue that those feelings appear to have developed as a result of structural change—most notably funding cuts and demands for efficiency—which seem to be grounded in what can broadly be understood as neoliberal political ideology and austerity measures. We further suggest that such structural cha...
This article argues for the establishment of a Mobility Bill of Rights. That the current car syst... more This article argues for the establishment of a Mobility Bill of Rights. That the current car system is not sustainable in environmental terms has been much discussed in academic circles and is increasingly accepted in wider society, as reflected by governmental attempts at reform. The current trend for remodeling this car system largely involves the substitution of petrol/diesel for potentially more ecologically sound methods of powering the vehicles such as electricity. Attempts to reach environmental sustainability in this manner do little to impact social or economic sustainability and thus will fail to address the triple bottom line. Rather, reliance on automobiles in the present vein may continue trends for mobility-related exclusion. To tackle this, we need a debate on how the transport needs of ordinary people can be met.
This paper offers a timely investigation into access to justice in rural areas through place-base... more This paper offers a timely investigation into access to justice in rural areas through place-based research. The paper reports an empirical study designed to gain the local knowledge and personal experience of one particular group of rural dwellers in the hope that it might help encourage a wider discussion on access to rural justice. The research has been conducted within the wider socio-political context of austerity that provides a challenge to public-sector service delivery in general, alongside the particular legal impact of budget cuts on the provision of justice, with closures of large amounts of courts, the decline in legal aid provision and reductions in police numbers. Such are important issues for England and Wales as a whole, meaning that this research is contemporary and represents one of the first academic studies to specifically deal with the impact of austerity on access to justice. The value of this research is further heightened with its focus on the specific rural...
This book examines the state of access to criminal justice by considering the health of the lawye... more This book examines the state of access to criminal justice by considering the health of the lawyer-client relationship under legal aid. In the largest study of its kind for some two decades, ethnographic fieldwork is used to gain a fresh perspective upon the interaction that lies at the heart of the criminal justice system's equality of arms. The research produces two contradictory messages; in interview, lawyers claim a positive relationship with their clients while, under participant observation, there emerges quite the opposite. Paying more heed to what was seen than what was said, it is supposed that these lawyers were able to talk the talk but not walk the walk. The lawyers treat their clients with wanton disrespect; making fun of them, talking over them and pushing them to plead guilty – despite protestations to the contrary. The evidence is damning for this branch of the legal profession – and tragic for the clients who depend on them. What is responsible for this malaise…inadequate financial remuneration? Increased time pressures? Lapsed ethical training? Whatever the origin, this book is intended to show the profession that there is a problem – one that could get worse unless they choose to learn from the mistakes made by the lawyers in this study
This refection is based on a conversation with Professor Carole Pateman on 4th December 2017 as w... more This refection is based on a conversation with Professor Carole Pateman on 4th December 2017 as we prepared for a conference at Cardiff University to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of her seminal work, The Sexual Contract (1988). As socio-legal scholars, The Sexual Contract has been formative in, and transformative of, our understandings of law and gender. We explore Professor Pateman’s academic journey and consider how she came to write a ground-breaking book that has made major impacts on socio-legal and feminist legal studies. The paper is structured around the main themes arising in conversation with Pateman, with each section centred on her own account taken from our conversation in late 2017.
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Papers by Daniel Newman