Above the Roof, Beneath the Law: Perceived Justice behind Disruptive Tactics of Migrant Wage Claimants in China

Abstract

The way in which citizens in developing countries conceptualize legality is a critical but understudied question for legal consciousness and legal mobilization studies. Drawing on participatory observations and extensive interviews from western China, this article explores the subjective interpretations of migrant wage claimants on law and justice behind their disruptive actions. Their perception of justice differs starkly from what the law stipulates as target, evidence and proper procedures. Who shall be held responsible? What constitutes evidence? When shall they be paid? How much? Their perceptions also differ from the attitude “against the law” found among members from disadvantaged social groups in the United States. The Chinese case of legal perception is shaped by the moral precepts ingrained in the culture, and more importantly, by the lopsided relationship between migrant workers and the political and business elite. It thus points to the daunting barriers in channeling the ever‐growing number of social conflicts into court.

Contesting Legality in Authoritarian Contexts: Food Safety, Rule of Law and China's Networked Public Sphere

“…Our analysis also shows that, although the state‐controlled media tend to report on the positive rather than negative aspects of the legal system (Stockmann and Gallagher ), a few state‐controlled, but still outspoken newspapers dare to cover voices excluded from the official discourse. Consistent with studies on migrant workers and legal professionals (Fu and Cullen ; He et al ; Liu and Halliday ), we find that lawyers, disputants, and NGOs attempted to mobilize public opinion through their connection with outspoken newspapers. The cacophonies produced by lawyers, NGOs, disputants, and outspoken newspapers provided the public in Tianya with alternative views and information about the Sanlu scandal.…”

“…When interviewed by the media about the Deng Yujiao case, the Vice President of the Hubei Higher People's Court said that judges should consider how the public perceives cases on trial and avoid arousing public sentiment . The Vice President's statement is consistent with studies of the Chinese legal system that show that, to appease the public, Chinese courts and Party‐state agencies involved in legal disputes take public opinion into consideration, particularly when pressure from public opinion is intense (He ; He et al ; Liebman , 2011b).…”

“…Research also suggests that legal disputants themselves might influence the construction of legality in the networked public sphere by sharing their experiences with journalists or directly with the public via the Internet. He et al's () study of migrant wage claimants finds that workers who feel alienated by formal legal institutions appeal to the court of public opinion to address their grievances. In a similar vein, Yang's () research on the Internet finds that rights protection activism is common in China's online public sphere.…”

Hukou Status and Sentencing in the Wake of Internal Migration: The Penalty Effect of Being Rural‐to‐Urban Migrants in China

“…Finally, while our findings add to a growing body of literature that finds that rural‐to‐urban migrants are increasingly entangled in social exclusion and punitive and coercive state control (Zhong, Xu, and Piquero ; Li ; He, Wang, and Su ), our findings are also aligned with the classic research goal pursued by sociolegal scholarship—exploring the gap between “law on the books” and “law in action” (Friedman ). Our finding of a significant relationship between Hukou status and sentencing outcomes suggests that Chinese criminal justice practices (and their end results) are shaped and conditioned by the structure of Chinese society.…”

Justice, Emotion, and Belonging: Legal Consciousness in a Taiwanese Family Conflict

“…Emotions, in simplified terms, are the "bodily sensations or feelings, of greater or lesser intensity" (Gould 2013) that arise in response to a situation, events, or experiences (Damasio 2004). A growing trend in legal consciousness research has begun to view the role of one's emotions in relation to the culturally embedded sense of self, giving them more weight in the development of legal consciousness than previously assumed and presenting an entirely different concept of how and when the law may become active in the thoughts and actions of individuals (Abrego 2011;Engel 2005;Engel 2016aEngel , 2016bEngel and Engel 2010;He et al 2013;Kim 2015;Liu 2018;Tungnirun 2018).…”