Socio-Legal Construction of Otherness Under a Neo-Liberal Regime: The Case of Foreign Workers in the Israeli Criminal Courts

• NCJ Number: 239915
• Journal: British Journal of Criminology Volume: 52 Issue: 4 Dated: July 2012 Pages: 685-704
• Author(s): Mimi Ajzenstadt; Assaf Shapira
• Date Published: July 2012
• Length: 20 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This paper attempts to reveal the ways in which criminal courts in Israel constructed foreign workers brought to trial as 'others'.

Abstract

This paper attempts to reveal the ways in which criminal courts in Israel constructed foreign workers brought to trial as 'others'. Individual foreign workers were framed as being irrelevant as bearers of rights while, in a parallel process, foreign workers as a group were constructed as symbolically relevant to discussions regarding the state governance of social risk. The study spans the years 1994-2011, when Israel adopted a new neo-liberal regime. The paper shows that the complex penal construction of the 'other' was used as a platform to justify and support the fuelling of the country's globalized neo-liberal economy with cheap migrant workers. (Published Abstract)