Two new publications:

1. Luis Edward Tenorio, “Legal Care Work: Emotion and Care Work in Lawyering with Unaccompanied Minors,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2024.2401601#abstract

ABSTRACT
We know legal representation can improve the likelihood of favorable legal outcomes for immigrants, what some scholars refer to as the ‘representation effect’. But can legal representation affect client’s broader integration and resettlement outcomes along the timeline of their legal case? If so, how? Drawing from literature on emotion work, care work, and how attorneys interact with immigrant clients, I propose the concept of legal care work to capture the emotion and care work strategies attorneys undertake to respond to immigrant clients’ broader set of needs. Based on a rich qualitative study of attorneys and Central American unaccompanied minor clients, I show how the legal care work attorneys perform illustrate the need for an expanded conceptualization of the ‘representation effect’ they have on clients, impacting behaviors and outcomes across various dimensions of everyday life. Further, I show how who receives and is denied legal care work—a product of biases and stereotypes, as well as bureaucratic dysfunction—exacerbate disparities along different socio-demographic lines (e.g. race, age, gender). These findings underscore the value of interrogating the role attorneys play in facilitating the transformative effects of the law and advancing social change in complex and hostile legal contexts.

2. Joseph-Goteiner, D. (2024). From Degrees to Dimensions: Accounts of Workers’ Socioeconomic Dependence on Platforms. Socius, 10. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231241275412

ABSTRACT
Platform work is one prominent type of independent contracting in the United States. Yet the independent status of platform workers is contested. Some scholars call platform workers dependent contractors. Others are measuring workers’ economic dependence to support better classification. Given platform workers’ heterogeneity, current efforts to classify workers’ dependence might be missing different kinds of dependencies. This article asks the following: What are the dimensions of economic dependence that platform workers experience? I interviewed 47 individuals working on the microwork platform Prolific and analyzed three dimensions that were salient in workers’ accounts: “episodic,” “discretionary,” and “projected” dependencies. These dimensions can help us to measure platform dependence. Furthermore, this article theorizes how each form of dependence might reinforce economic precarity. This study calls for further connections between platform studies and literature on household finance, consumption, and culture.