Socio-legal Scholarship

How do labor judges and labor inspectors persuade workers to settle their claims? How do multi-national companies implement private, global agreements in particular plants and among their global suppliers? Because these questions deal with the way law works “in action” I cannot always find answers in law books. I must engage in “socio-legal” research to get the answers. Therefore, some of my scholarship reports on “elite interviews,” or interviews I do of people who are especially knowledgeable of certain law-related matters, such as a company’s implementation of a private agreement. Additionally, I have done two ethnographies based on participant observation. That research requires me to spend significant time in a place where I can get an intimate understanding of how law works. I have been lucky to do this type of research at the labor inspectorate and labor courts of Chile, where I followed labor inspectors to copper mines, agricultural fields, and other places of work. I also served as an organizer at Arise Chicago, a worker center, to learn how that group advocated for workers without counting with the resources of a traditional labor union. Below is a list of my socio-legal publications. Some report on original research, while others report on secondary data or set theoretical and research agendas.