ALSA 2025 meeting

This panel aims to bridge the traditional socio-legal studies of the "living law" and the recent research of legal consciousness from 4 countries papers.
The concept of "living law," by Eugen Ehrlich, expressed the sense of justice among the ordinary people resisting the denial of their customary practice by state law. Relying on this concept, socio-legal surveys were conducted in various countries to defend customary rights, leading to landmark judicial decisions.
Living law's theory presupposed that such law existed prior to state law, was autonomous and robust, and that the law's community adhering to it was homogeneous. However, our empirical research reveals that in order for longstanding daily practices to be formulated as customary rights, they are often framed using legal categories derived from international human rights norms, state law, or regional legal frameworks. It becomes necessary, therefore, to understand living law as a form of translation of exogenous laws.
Moreover, the way in which such exogenous laws are translated and interpreted varies among local peoples and their supporters. Recent studies on legal consciousness, initiated by Patricia Ewick and Susan Silbey, emphasize the diversity in people’s understanding of law. They focus on how individuals justify and narrate their practices, thereby seeking to capture the plurality of legal consciousness. Relying on this perspective, this panel analyzes the processes through which exogenous law, customary rights, and daily practices are translated and interpreted.
Our topics include customary forests in Japan and Indonesia, farmland reallocation practices in China, and human rights advocacy in Myanmar.

This paper analyzes Myanmar people’s legal consciousness from the 1988 democratization movement to the end of 2023, focusing on the evolution of their understanding and interpretation of the term “human rights” or “lu akwin aye.” The central discussion utilizes the theoretical framework of rights consciousness research in the sociology of law to clarify the specifics of how the Myanmar people understood the concept of human rights during the military rule from 1988 to 2011 and during the subsequent decade of so-called democratization.
From 1988 to 2011, Myanmar experienced a military dictatorship and was harshly criticized by the international community for human rights abuses against its people. After the transition to civilian rule in 2011, Myanmar’s political transition was hailed as democratization, and attracted international businesses. In the light of such so-called democratization and economic liberalization, the longstanding human rights abuses afflicting the people of Myanmar were discussed less and seemed to recede into the background.
This paper clarifies the legal consciousness of the Myanmar people, who have experienced major political and social changes during the past three decades, from the perspective of the vernacular translation of the human rights concept. Specifically, the following three points are discussed. First, it depicts how Myanmar people have understood and practiced the foreign concept of "human rights" by translating it according to the local context of Myanmar society, culture, and customs. Second, the paper focuses on the "translators" who played the pivotal roles in translating human rights and clarify the shift of translators and their roles according to political and social changes in each period. Third, it is highlighted that social and human rights activists, who once were former political prisoners, have been playing the significant role in forming and developing the people's understanding and practice of human rights.