The Formation of Legal Consciousness

Everyday encounters with law, including securing access to public services, navigating workplaces, exercising rights or avoiding unwanted legal consequences, are rarely straightforward. We still know too little about how people actually ‘get things done’ both formal informal ways, and how these interactions shape their understandings and perceptions of law.

This book reveals how individuals’ legal consciousness forms through the intertwined processes of learning, rationalisation and routinisation. The book uncovers how prior legal understandings, everyday problem-solving strategies and encounters with state and non-state norms together forge a continually shifting relationship with the law. Its timely insights deepen current conversations about law in people’s everyday life and how people learn to navigate new legal worlds.