Making Sense of Law In Turbulent Times: Legal Culture, Legal Consciousness, and Social Change (WG Comparative Legal Culture)

We live in an era of profound global turbulence. Ongoing wars and armed conflicts - from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the continuing violence in Israel-Palestine to the recent escalation involving Iran - have challenged established norms of international law and human rights. At the same time, social and economic inequalities have reached staggering levels: the wealthiest 10% of the world's population owns roughly 75–85% of global wealth, while the top 1% alone controls nearly half. By contrast, the bottom 50% owns just 1–2% of the world's wealth. Alongside democratic backsliding, mass migration, climate change, and technological disruption, these developments raise urgent questions about the place of law in contemporary societies.

How do people understand, experience, mobilize, and resist law in times of uncertainty? How do changing political and social environments shape legal beliefs, expectations, and practices? What role does law play in producing, maintaining, or contesting social order amid crisis and transformation?

This session invites contributions that explore the relationship between legal culture, legal consciousness, and social change in contemporary societies. We welcome theoretical, methodological, and empirical papers examining how individuals and groups make sense of law under conditions of political polarization, institutional instability, authoritarianism, conflict, and rapid social transformation. Possible topics include legal mobilization and resistance; human rights consciousness; law and democratic resilience; migration and bordering practices; digital technologies and legal subjectivities; access to justice; everyday encounters with law; and comparative perspectives on legal consciousness across diverse socio-legal contexts.