Litigation does, of course, occur in every Asian country, but a great deal of legal mobilization takes place away from formal mechanisms of the state.
Frequently, mobilizers litigate in conjunction with other tactics, or after years of building support painstakingly at the grassroots and shoring up expertise and resources. From law and society literature on Asia and beyond, it is clear that legal mobilization need not be directed at courts or other formal institutional mechanisms.
Nevertheless, we might come across definÂitions of legal mobilization that confine the concept to actions directed explicitly at formal institutional mechanisms. This kind of narrow approach is rather unfortunate, because it leads to only a partial understanding of law in the Asian context in which one is interested. It also runs contrary to the law and society tradition of investigating the workings of law and overlapping layers of power in all facets of life, not merely where and when the state takes center stage.The inclusive scope of legal mobilization goes hand in hand with a broad construction of law's power, especially that of rights. Certainly, rights possess instrumental power to compel or prevent action, for example, when they are enacted in legislation or effected by court order. Legal mobilization scholars, however, take the view that rights can do more, regardless of and in addition to their instrumental power. Informed by cultural anthropology, legal mobilizaÂtion scholars conceptualize rights as social practices, a set of culturally condiÂtioned beliefs or a symbolic framework with which to formulate, think about, and react to one's troubles and other encounters (Geertz 1964). Thus, rights become cultural resources that people can draw upon to bargain, rally, empower, and organize.
5.1