Structures of Inequality: The Role of Law and Regulation

• Attend the seminar online via Zoom
•  

Can we speak of discrimination in the absence of identifiable individual acts of discrimination? Are there legal structures or legally normalised structures in our societies that nonetheless produce persistent patterns of structural inequality? And why are existing structures of inequality so deeply entrenched and hard to change? Drawing on the work of political theorists such as Iris Marion Young, Professor Sofia Ranchordas will present her latest book on structural inequalities in the Italian context, alongside her ongoing research into key examples of how legal and regulatory frameworks throughout the world can be used to confront structural injustice. The presentation will focus on three case studies that are often examined through the lens of criminal law, but rarely from the perspective of equality and justice: the so-called “Land of Fires” (Terra dei Fuochi), involving unlawful waste disposal and serious public health risks; the Vele di Scampia, an emblem of social housing failure and urban neglect; and labor exploitation in agricultural value chains.

At the heart of this work lie two central questions: Why have these communities been systematically marginalised and exposed to long-standing structural injustice? And what role can law and regulation play in dismantling the very structures that sustain inequality?

Discussants

Carlo Nicoli Aldini & Dr Isabel Schoultz, Sociology of Law Department, Lund University

Sofia Ránchordas is a WASP-HS Visiting Professor at Lund University, a Full Professor of Administrative Law at Tilburg Law in the Netherlands and a Professor of Law, Innovation, and Sustainability at LUISS Guido Carli in Rome. At Lund University, she leads the research project "Administrative Vulnerability", which investigates how the automation of digital government impedes vulnerable citizens from exercising their rights before the government and how to reshape administrative law to address this issue.