Report on the IMISCOE-Funded B6 Workshop on 'Legal and Normative Accommodation in Multicultural Europe', Brussels 14-15 July, 2008.

• Author: Grillo, Ralph
• Position: International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe - Report

1. Introduction

   This report on an IMISCOE Cluster B6 workshop held in Brussels in July 2008 is in four parts. Part I is a summary which may suffice for many readers. Others who need or wish to go further might look at Part II, which covers the background more fully; Part III, which includes notes and reflections on the workshop; and Part IV, which sets out some proposals for the future. An appendix gives details of workshop participants. There is considerable interest among social scientists, lawyers and judges in understanding how legal practice in Europe is changing in the encounter with the diversity occasioned by immigration. Noting this, members of IMISCOE B6 organised a conference in London in July 2007 on the theme of 'Legal Practice and Cultural Diversity', papers from which will appear in a collection to be published by Ashgate in 2009. In 2008, the group received an additional grant to develop a framework for future discussion and research, and it was agreed to organise a workshop to clarify strategy. This took place in July 2008, at the Belgian Royal Academy in Bruxelles, convened by Ralph Grillo, with the assistance of Roger Ballard, John Bowen, Alessandro Ferrari, Marie-Claire Foblets, Andre Hoekema, Marcel Maussen, and Prakash Shah, and organised locally by Marie-Claire Foblets. The chosen focus was 'Legal and Normative Accommodation in Multicultural Europe', specifically concerning the family, with the intention of working through to more general analytical and conceptual issues by means of close examination and in-depth analysis of substantive empirical examples, including actual legal cases. The following summarises a wide-ranging debate, and sketches an agenda for future discussion and research. 'Accommodation' refers to practices through which social actors operating in, or in the shadow of, the legal process, are sensitive to, and make room for, 'other' values and meanings. The requirement for accommodation stems from global trends (including transnational migration) ramifying through social and cultural systems with important implications for the law, especially in the familial domain.

   Accommodation is a complex process happening on many different levels, and in many different places, drawing in many different social and legal actors, with many different and often conflicting interests--there is, for example, an important gender dimension. The 'Sharia debate' in the UK illustrates many of these points. The extent to which legal systems are prepared to accommodate difference varies across place and time--some, at some times, are more open to accommodation (or open to some accommodations) than others. The reasons are partly socio-historical, partly to do with different legal cultures, and partly conjunctural, and all this needs close investigation. There appears, now, however, to be a hardening of boundaries, a rejection of open-ness which we see more generally in the widespread backlash against diversity. However, those demanding or claiming the recognition and accommodation of difference are unlikely to be satisfied with the injunction 'When in Rome'. In the contemporary world of multiple transnational exchanges, such demands are unlikely to go away. More generally, accommodation is part and parcel of how social orders are negotiated, and societies (including legal practitioners) should not fear accommodation. Interlegality is part of the human condition (like creolisation), and a salutary process. Nevertheless, societies have the right to define what is negotiable and what is not, though hopefully the bar of tolerance can be set quite low. When boundaries are set through intercultural dialogue, they are often accepted (as, for example, in recent debates about forced marriages). The keynote is accommodation through 'incremental change', albeit the burden of implementing change should not be left to legal actors alone.

   It was agreed:

   (a) To establish a network entitled 'Accommodation in Pluri-Legal Europe' (APLE), for information exchange and contacts. A discussion list has now been created at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/PLURI-LEGAL

   (b) To prepare a major conference for 2009/10, to examine (in different contexts) obstacles to the legal accommodation of difference in the realm of everyday matters affecting (transnational) families (including marriage, divorce, children, the transmission of property), with a dual focus: 'How do?' and 'How should?'

   (c) To seek funds and a venue (i) for a planning meeting; and (ii) eventually for the major conference itself; To enquire whether any remaining IMISCOE funds might be made available for this purpose.

   (d) To note opportunities for funding future interdisciplinary research collaboration (NORFACE, next round of Framework VII etc), and encourage colleagues to go forward with proposals .

2. Background

   In recent years there has been a growing interest across Europe and North America (and elsewhere) in the interaction between migration, or rather between the lives of migrants and their descendants in the 'Northern' receiving countries, and the law and legal processes. This is frequently a matter of concern in the public square, but there has also been a burgeoning of interdisciplinary research on the implications of this interaction for legal systems and their practitioners. Are we, for instance, witnessing a 'pluralising' of the law? Taking note of these developments, a group based in IMISCOE organised a successful conference around the theme of 'Legal Practice and Cultural Diversity', in London in July 2007. Looking to build on that conference a small team of anthropologists, legal specialists and political scientists from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA sought to develop a framework for further discussions and possible research collaboration. Exchange of views revealed a range of opinions as to what direction (and what form) such discussions might take, and eventually it was agreed that at this stage a small, relatively focused workshop, rather than a large conference, might provide a better opportunity to identify a fruitful strategy. We were all agreed on the importance and relevance of getting to grips (from within our respective disciplines) with the interaction between legal practice and cultural diversity, but as someone remarked:

   'We are trying to sink our teeth into a staggeringly wide range of intellectual and political issues [and] are still all (usefully and necessarily) at sixes and sevens as to the appropriate analytical and conceptual frameworks with which to address the issues by which we find ourselves confronted'.

   Seeking to explore precisely those elusive 'appropriate analytical and conceptual frameworks', we agreed as a next step to organise a workshop focusing on 'Legal and Normative Accommodation in Multicultural Europe' (our working title from an early stage), specifically concerning the family. This idea was taken up, albeit with a strong indication that it would be best to work through to the analytical and conceptual issues (e.g. those engaged by concepts such as 'interlegality' and 'internormativity') by means of close examination and in-depth discussion of particular case studies--meaning specific substantive empirical examples, which might include actual legal cases.

   In due course, a limited number of people were invited to a meeting in Brussels in July 2008 to present papers or act as discussants, and the programme was organised in three phases as follows:

   Phase One:

   Case studies illustrating different aspects of the general theme, including the analysis of legal and normative accommodation with regard to family matters (the domestic arena in the anthropological sense), focusing on key domestic relations, i.e. spouses/partners and parents/children. Papers presented by Samia Bano, Wibo van Rossum, France Blanmailland & Celine Verbrouck (joint paper), Julie Ringelheim, Prakash Shah, Roger Ballard, with Mathias Rohe, Fauzia Shariff, and Barbara Truffin as discussants

   Phase Two:

   A roundtable session with two papers setting out some general conceptual issues and approaches, and providing the opportunity to reflect on the implications of the case studies examined in Phase One. Papers presented by John Bowen, Andre Hoekema, with Marcel Maussen discussant.

   Phase Three:

   Discussion of possible agendas for future workshops or conferences which might be held in 2009-2010; future organisation of the group; possible research agendas, including the potential for applying for EU funding. Led by Marie-Claire Foblets.

3. Notes and Comments--Some Personal Reflections, Thinking Aloud ...

   1. We reminded ourselves (or Marcel Maussen reminded us) that one of the reasons for the emergence of the field (as a matter of both public and scholarly concern) was globalisation and the transnationalisation of migration. Migration has brought to Europe people with cultural values and practices which are sometimes very different from those accepted as hegemonic in contemporary receiving societies, and in one domain, that of the family, this has become a matter of all-round concern. Families of migrant origin, for example, are central to arguments about the rights and wrongs of ways of living in multicultural societies, their (often imagined) practices the focus of...