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Doing Things with Time: Flexibility, Adaptability, and Elasticity in UK Equality Cases

Grabham, Emily (2011) Doing Things with Time: Flexibility, Adaptability, and Elasticity in UK Equality Cases. Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 26 (3). pp. 485-508. ISSN 0829-3201. (doi:10.3138/cjls.26.3.485) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:29285)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cjls.26.3.485

Abstract

This paper focuses on the increasing significance of flexibility arguments to UK employment equality law. It makes use of the well-evidenced legal and governmental preoccupation with working time to investigate the production and circulation of concepts of flexibility through equality law case reports from the period 2001–2010. With case reports as my main focus, I trace how flexibility emerges through legal documental networks, so as to work out the contours of our collectively imagined “efficient” and “well-balanced” working practices. Human actors and significant non-human actors combine within and across case reports to produce and support a general set of understandings about legal flexibility. These understandings, as we have seen, suggest that flexibility is just as much a matter of organic or physical capabilities as it is of time. Concepts of elasticity, adaptability, and balance, therefore, force us to reconsider the meanings and motivations of governmental and oppositional constructions of work–life dilemmas. -----

Cet article s’intéresse à l’importance grandissante de la souplesse dans les lois britanniques sur l’égalité en matière d’emploi. En tenant compte de la préoccupation du temps de travail des systèmes légaux et gouvernementaux, nous examinons l’élaboration et la propagation des concepts de souplesse à l’aide de rapports d’enquête légaux en matière d’égalité durant les années 2001 à 2010. En portant une attention particulière sur des rapports d’enquête, nous soulignons la présence de la souplesse dans les réseaux de documents légaux, afin de circonscrire les notions collectives et imaginaires que sont les conditions de travail « efficaces » et « équilibées ». Dans ces documents ainsi qu’ailleurs, des facteurs importants, de nature humaine et non humaine, influencent notre compréhension de la souplesse légale. Comme nous l’avons vu, la souplesse semble résulter tant d’aptitudes organiques ou physiques que de la notion du temps. Par conséquent, les concepts d’élasticité, d’adaptabilité et d’équilibre viennent souligner les significations ainsi que les motivations présentes dans les constructions gouvernementales et contestataires des dilemmes travail-vie.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.3138/cjls.26.3.485
Subjects: K Law
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > Kent Law School
Depositing User: Jenny Harmer
Date Deposited: 16 Apr 2012 09:25 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:07 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/29285 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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