Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-dwq4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-25T06:09:50.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shared parenting, law and policy: considering power within the framework of autopoietic theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2015

Annika Newnham
Annika Newnham*
Affiliation:
Lecturer, University of Reading, School of Law. Email: a.newnham@reading.ac.uk
*
a.newnham@reading.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper uses the last few decades’ developments in the area of shared parenting to explore power within the framework of autopoietic theory. It traces how, prompted by turbulence from the political subsystem, family law has made several unsuccessful attempts to solve the perceived problem of post-separation dual-household parenting. It agrees with Luhmann and Teubner that closed autopoietic systems’ developments are limited by their normative and cognitive frameworks, and also argues that changes which have occurred in family law show that closed social systems do not function in total isolation. It considers power as ego's ability to limit alter's choices. In our functionally differentiated society, with its recent proliferation of communication, power appears more diffuse and impossible to plot into causal one-way relationships.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 11 , Issue 4: Critical Socio-legal Engagements with Systems Thinking , December 2015 , pp. 426 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailey-Harris, Rebecca, Barron, J. and Pearce, J. (1999) ‘From Utility to Rights? The Presumption of Contact in Practice’, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 13: 111–131.Google Scholar
Barnett, Adrienne (2009) ‘The Welfare of the Child Re-Visited: In Whose Best Interests? Part II’, Family Law: 135–141.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Hugh and Clarkson, Dale (2007) ‘Confusion and Controversy in Parental Alienation’, Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 29: 265–275.Google Scholar
Collier, Richard and Sheldon, Sally (2008) Fragmenting Fatherhood: A Socio-Legal Study. Oxford, Hart Publishing.Google Scholar
Dubois, Ellen, Dunlap, Mary, Gilligan, Carol, Mackinnon, Catherine and Menkel-Meadow, Carrie (1985) ‘Feminist Discourse, Moral Values and the Law – A Conversation’, Buffalo Law Review 34: 11–88.Google Scholar
Ekbom, Inger and Landberg, Åsa (2007) Innerst Inne var man Rädd. Stockholm: Rädda Barnen & Socialstyrelsen.Google Scholar
Fehlberg, Belinda (2012) ‘Legislating for Shared Parenting: How the Family Justice Review Got it Right’, Family Law: 709–713.Google Scholar
Geldof, Bob (2003) ‘The Real Love that Dare Not Speak its Name: A Sometimes Coherent Rant’, in Bainham, Andrew, Lindley, Bridget, Richards, Martin and Trinder, Liz (eds), Children and Their Families: Contact, Rights and Welfare. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 171–200.Google Scholar
Gilmore, Stephen (2006) ‘Court Decision-making in Shared Residence Order Cases: A Critical Examination’, Child and Family Law Quarterly 18: 478–498.Google Scholar
Gilmore, Stephen (2008) ‘The Assumption that Contact is Beneficial: Challenging the “Secure Foundation”’, Family Law: 1226–1229.Google Scholar
Harding, Maebh and Newnham, Annika (2014) ‘Initial Research Findings: The Typical Levels of Parental Involvement where Post-separation Parenting Is Resolved by Court Order’, Family Law: 672–675.Google Scholar
Harris, Peter and George, Rob (2010) ‘Parental Responsibility and Shared Residence Orders: Parliamentary Intentions and Judicial Interpretations’, Child and Family Law Quarterly 22: 151–171.Google Scholar
James, Adrian (2003) ‘Squaring the Circle – the Social, Legal and Welfare Organisation of Contact’, in Bainham, Andrew, Lindley, Bridget, Richards, Martin and Trinder, Liz (eds), Children and their Families: Contact, Rights and Welfare. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 133–151.Google Scholar
James, Adrian, James, Allison and Mcnamee, Sally (2004) ‘Turning Down the Volume – Not Hearing Children in Family Proceedings’, Child and Family Law Quarterly 16: 189–202.Google Scholar
Kaganas, Felicity (2013) ‘A Presumption that “Involvement” of Both Parents Is Best: Deciphering Law's Messages’, Child and Family Law Quarterly: 270–293.Google Scholar
Kaganas, Felicity and Day Sclater, Shelley (2004) ‘Contact Disputes: Narrative Constructions of “Good” Parents’, Feminist Legal Studies: 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaganas, Felicity and Piper, Christine (2002) ‘Shared Parenting – a 70% Solution?’, Child and Family Law Quarterly 14: 365–379.Google Scholar
King, Michael and Piper, Christine (1995) How the Law Thinks About Children, 2nd edn.Aldershot: Arena.Google Scholar
Laing, Karen (2006) ‘Doing the Right Thing: Cohabiting Parents, Separation and Child Contact’, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family: 169–179.Google Scholar
Law Commission (1988) Family Law Review of Guardianship and Custody, No. 172. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Lawler, Stephanie (1999) ‘Children Need but Mothers only Want: The Power of Needs Talk in the Constitution of Childhood’, in Seymour, Julie and Bagguley, Paul (eds), Relating Intimacies: Power and Resistance. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd, 64–88.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1979) Power. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1988) ‘The Third Question: The Creative Use of Paradoxes in Law and Legal History’, Journal of Law and Society 15: 153–165.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1989) ‘Law as a Social System’, Northwestern University Law Review 83: 136–150.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1990) Essays on Self-Reference. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1992) ‘Operational Closure and Structural Coupling: The Differentiation of the Legal System’, Cardozo Law Review 13: 1419–1441.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas (1995) ‘Legal Argumentation: An Analysis of its Form’, Modern Law Review 58: 285–298.Google Scholar
Murray, Charles (1996) ‘The Emerging British Underclass’, in Lister, Ruth (ed.), Charles Murray and the Underclass: The Developing Debate. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 27–53.Google Scholar
Nobles, Richard and Schiff, David (2009) ‘Why Do Judges Talk the Way They Do?’ International Journal of Law in Context 5: 25–49.Google Scholar
Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Andreas (2003) ‘Beauty and the Beast: Art and Law in the Hall of Mirrors’, Entertainment Law Review 2: 1–34.Google Scholar
Reece, Helen (2009) ‘The Degradation of Parental Responsibility’, in Probert, Rebecca, Gilmore, Stephen and Herring, Johnathan (eds), Responsible Parents and Parental Responsibility. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 85–102.Google Scholar
Rejmer, Annika (2003) Vårdnadstvister: en rättssociologisk studie av tingsrätts funktion vid handläggning av vårdnadskonflikter med utgångspunkt från barnets bästa. Lund: Lund Studies in the Sociology of Law.Google Scholar
Rifkin, Janet (1980) ‘Toward a Theory of Law and Patriarchy’, Harvard Women's Law Journal 3: 83–95.Google Scholar
Roche, Jeremy (1991) ‘The Children Act 1989: Once a Parent Always a Parent’, Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 13: 345–361.Google Scholar
Ryder, Ernest (2008) ‘A Tale of Two Thresholds’, Family Law: 29–37.Google Scholar
Ryrstedt, Eva (2009) ‘Samarbetssamtal’, Svensk Juristtidning: 821–842.Google Scholar
Smart, Carol (1995) ‘Losing the Struggle for Another Voice: The Case of Family Law’, Dalhousie Law Journal: 173–195.Google Scholar
Smith, Carole (2004) ‘Autopoietic Law and the “Epistemic Trap”: A Case Study of Adoption and Contact’, Journal of Law and Society 31: 318–344.Google Scholar
Smith, Leanne and Trinder, Liz (2012) ‘Mind the Gap: Parent Education Programmes and the Family Justice System’, Child and Family Law Quarterly: 428–451.Google Scholar
Spencer, S. (2008) ‘Benchmarks: Family Residence’, Law Society Gazette 39: 24–27.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther (1993) Law as an Autopoietic System. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther (1998) ‘Legal Irritants: Good Faith in British Law or How Unifying Law Ends Up in New Divergences’, Modern Law Review 61: 11–32.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther (2001) ‘Alienating Justice: On the Surplus Value of the Twelfth Camel’, in Nelken, David and Přibáň, Jiří (eds), Law's New Boundaries: Consequences of Legal Autopoiesis. Aldershot: Ashgate, 21–44.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther, Schiff, David and Nobles, Richard (2003) ‘The Autonomy of Law: Introduction to Legal Autopoiesis’, in Schiff, David and Nobles, Richard (eds), Jurisprudence. London: Butterworths, 897–954.Google Scholar
Trinder, Liz (2010) ‘Shared Residence: A Review of Recent Research Evidence’, Child and Family Law Quarterly: 475–498.Google Scholar
Van Krieken, Robert (2005) ‘The Best Interests of the Child and Parental Separation: On the Civilizing of Parents’, Modern Law Review 68: 25–48.Google Scholar
Van Krieken, Robert (2006) ‘Law's Autonomy in Action: Anthropology and History in Court’, Social & Legal Studies 15(4): 574–590.Google Scholar