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The nexus where law, social movements, and organizations meet demands further explication. This research adds to our understandings of these dynamics by examining the case of the central Appalachian anti-strip mining movement. After developing a social network technique to analyze over thirty years of newspapers, we find a period of reduced movement activity following the passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. Conversely, we observe a reinvigoration of the movement following the passage of the Clean Air Amendments of 1990 and the perverse incentives they created for mountaintop removal mining. Finally, we see that joint participation in lawsuits is a primary tie that binds these groups together.

This chapter examines and discusses the unintended outcomes of the production bonus scheme the mine had instituted to motivate and increase the productivity of the frontline mining teams. This is crucial given that the maladministration of the bonus system could lead to a range of undesired outcomes such as deteriorating levels of trust between management and frontline workers, prioritisation of production at the expense of safety, poor work relations and ultimately low levels of organisational, employee and team performance. There are a number of organisational, management and labour factors that can render a production bonus scheme effective or ineffective. These factors influence the nature and extent of worker reactions to the bonus scheme.

This chapter examines and discusses the factors that influenced the reaction of the mining teams to the team-based production bonus scheme and the extent to which mine management fulfilled its side of the bargain in the implementation of the production bonus. The chapter highlights the manner in which the team-based bonus system influenced teams of stope workers to engage in their informal organisational practice of making plan (planisa) in order to offset the snags that jeopardised their prospects of earning the production bonus. The chapter reveals that, to a large extent, the productivity bonus generated conflict rather than cooperation at the point of production down the mine. As a result, the incentive scheme failed to live up to expectations by not eliciting the desired levels of organisational, worker and team performance at the rock-face.

Mine owners during the Klondike gold rush of 1898–1899 used two types of contracts to coordinate workers and their capital: wage contracts and lay (or share) contracts. The key interesting feature of this gold rush was the severe climate and the constraints it placed on the miners. I show that an “off the shelf” incentive model can explain the pattern of contracts, once one understands how the extreme weather environment influenced the behavior of miners.

The production of the ‘good life’ or the ‘less bad-life’ (Berlant, 2007, 2011), especially among generations of the Marcos dictatorship and the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue revolutions (henceforth, EDSA revolutions) in the Philippines, is animated by the ‘mobility imperative’ (Farrugia, 2016). The mobility imperative includes processes that encourage or demand mobility (Farrugia, 2016) for individuals and institutions. It figures in various ‘systems of practice’ (Levitt, 1998, 2001) among families in migrant-sending communities, government and corporations that magnify how migration is the ticket to better life (McKay, 2012) or its glorification as a heroic act (de los Reyes, 2013, 2014). Among the generations of the Martial Law and the EDSA revolutions, therefore, the ‘good life’ is hinged upon departure as professionals (e.g. nurses and engineers), workers in elementary occupations (e.g. construction and domestic workers) or mail-order brides or pen pals. Put simply, the good life in these generations is a function of remittances.

This chapter examines how the contemporary generation of young people construct the ‘good life’ in differential and new terms (de los Reyes, 2023; McKay & Brady, 2005) from previous generations. Using interviews and vision boards of left-behind children (15–18 years old), it argues that left-behind children critically appraise the ‘mobility imperative’. The chapter shows that there is a growing imagination of alternatives to the migration-induced good life among left-behind children, and therefore, they gradually refuse the ‘mobility imperative’. For them, the aspired good life consists of potentially being employees or entrepreneurs in their own villages and living a life with their own families (de los Reyes, 2019, 2020).

British colonization of Australia had lasting consequences for Australia’s legal system. Although designed as a “one law for all system” based on the English common law, the reality was, and is, that there have always been people regulating their lives according to their own distinctive culture and religion. Recognition of de facto legal pluralism, has only recently given rise to instances of de jure legal recognition. The latter necessitated a role for cultural expertise in a range of legal cases. The first considered is how social science expertise was employed in redressing the dispossession of the continent’s first peoples: indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. The landmark case of Mabo No 2 laid the legal ground for native title land ownership which fueled a demand for cultural experts in indigenous traditions, laws, and customs. The second aspect is Australia’s response to recent immigration from non-European nations, including from Muslim countries. Many Muslims continue to regulate their interpersonal relationships exclusively, or partially, by principles of Islamic law and their “homeland” culture. This is particularly evident in family matters and the prism for exploring the nascent role for cultural expertise is through post-divorce parenting orders. The third issue is the extent to which a court can accept an accused’s cultural practice or religious belief as a defense to a criminal act or omission. In all three, who is a “cultural expert” can be contentious. While cultural expertise in indigenous matters is well established, the role for cultural experts in the resolution of family disputes and criminal cases is just emerging.