Being One of Us: The Role of Mutual Recognition and Emotion in Shaping Legal Consciousness in a Taiwanese Neighbourhood Dispute

Abstract

Literature on neighbourhood disputes has explored legal consciousness by focusing on identity, personal relationships, and community norms. However, it still remains unclear how affective factors and one’s sense of identity can influence the social practice of law and how the recursive relationship between law, emotion, and identity can influence life in particular communities. This study explores the dynamics of identity/alterity construction, and the role of emotion in shaping these dynamics during a neighbourhood conflict in Taipei, Taiwan. This dispute highlights how ordinary Taiwanese people’s legal consciousness is constituted through a culturally embedded sense of emotion (qíng) and belonging (zìjǐrén). Analysis of “The Noodle Shop Case” advances our understanding of the social presence and authority of law and the ways in which the role of law changes according to how individuals feel as they seek both mutual recognition and justice.

Relational legal consciousness in the one-child nation

“…It also offers a detailed analysis of relational personhood in Chinese society and its significant role in shaping legal consciousness in everyday life. This article expands the implications of Wang's (2019Wang's ( , 2022 concept of zijiren (自己人), or "being one of us," by taking it beyond disputes among group members and situating it within domains co-created by law and social norms. It demonstrates how people's desires for recognition and respect from other people significantly affect their responses to law, which in turn reshape the enforcement of the law.…”

“…The concept of “relational legal consciousness” has been adopted by law and society scholars to refer to the relational approach to legal consciousness, the relational process of the formation of legal consciousness, and the legal consciousness resulting from this relational process (Abrego, 2019; Chua & Engel, 2019, 2021; Wang, 2022). Building upon existing literature, this article uses “relational legal consciousness” to describe the relational formation of legal consciousness within and across relationships and the different strategies resulting from this process of relational formation.…”

“…500, 502) research on “second‐order legal consciousness” also suggests that our beliefs about laws are influenced by our understandings of other people's experiences with and beliefs about the law. Following Young and Abrego, Wang's (2022) study of a neighborhood dispute in Taiwan emphasizes the importance of interpersonal interactions in the formation of legal consciousness and demonstrates that the role of law changes according to how individuals feel in the process of seeking justice and mutual recognition among parties involved in the dispute.…”

“…The highly relational nature of the self in Chinese society inevitably leads to one's relational legal consciousness—an individual's response to the law depends on the individual's relationships with those who are affected. Research studies suggest that qing , a complex concept that simultaneously refers to social connectedness, human emotion and feelings, and what the majority believes to be right or just, plays a significant role in shaping both ordinary people and law practitioners' decision‐making in the process of engaging the law (Li, 2016; Liu, 2018; Liu, 2021a; Martin, 2007, 2019; Wang, 2019, 2022).…”

“…When we evaluate whether a piece of law is just and how we should respond to it, we often try to make sure our evaluation and decisions align with the social norms and expectations of people around us. As Nadler (2017, p. 60) powerfully argues, “Law does not generally influence individual behavior in a vacuum, devoid of social context; instead, group identity interacts with law to provide motivations to comply.” The sense of being accepted and respected by the group, or what Wang (2022) refers to as groupness, plays a significant role in the formation of our legal consciousness. As Wang (2022, p. 8) writes, “people are morally and emotionally called upon to continuously identify or characterize themselves and others, according to social roles, as belonging to some category that they feel others perceive them in.”…”