Multicultural conflicts and national judges: A general approach

This article queries what judges and legal actors in general do as a matter of fact in multicultural conflicts brought before them. When, to what extent and why do they take minority legal sensibilities into account? Portraying the present living together of "communities" with different world views, lifestyles and legal practices; as encounters of individuals, "actors" forced to or eager to admit that there are other ways of doing things than the conditions in their country of origin the author advises we avoid the notion of different legal orders as fixed and independent elements and focus on ways individuals use their own practices and those of others. The piece proposes we concentrate on the selective use of "the legal" by concrete persons as a resource for promoting their interests by adopting an actor-oriented approach and avoiding any notion of structural determination, but without suggesting that people are always completely free to do as they wish. Focusing on the domestic, and substantively engaging with the concept of interlegality, the article analyses how social and legal actors negotiate accommodative solutions to legal questions regarding family matters in situations involving immigrant and ethnic minorities in Europe and North America.