Focus and Scope
Lentera Masyarakat Hukum is an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to Law and Society and Socio-Legal Studies, with a particular focus on the dynamic relationship between law, society, institutions, and social change. The journal provides a scholarly forum for critical and theoretically informed research on how law is produced, interpreted, implemented, experienced, and transformed within social contexts.
The journal is particularly interested in research that examines law in action, the social consequences of legal norms and institutions, and the ways in which social structures, cultural practices, community experiences, and institutional arrangements shape the operation and development of law. It seeks to advance understanding of contemporary legal and social problems through theoretically grounded, methodologically rigorous, and empirically informed scholarship.
The journal welcomes contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following areas:
- Law, Society, and Social Change — legal culture, legal consciousness, law in everyday life, social change and legal change, legal behavior, social norms, and the role of law in social transformation;
- Access to Justice and Legal Empowerment — access to legal institutions, legal aid, legal literacy, legal empowerment, barriers to justice, community legal services, and alternative forms of justice;
- Law, Institutions, and Social Practices — law in action, implementation of law and regulation, legal institutions, law enforcement, judicial and administrative practices, institutional behavior, and interactions between formal and informal legal systems;
- Law and Vulnerable or Marginalized Communities — legal experiences and protection of women, children, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, minority groups, economically disadvantaged communities, and other marginalized populations;
- Legal Pluralism, Customary Law, and Community Justice — customary law, indigenous justice, legal pluralism, local normative orders, restorative justice, mediation, and community-based dispute resolution;
- Law, Public Policy, and Governance — legal and regulatory policy, governance, legal reform, regulatory implementation, state–society relations, public participation, and the social effects of law and policy; and
- Law, Technology, and Social Transformation — digital society, legal technology, artificial intelligence and law, digital access to justice, data governance, and the social implications of technological change.
The journal welcomes empirical, socio-legal, theoretical, comparative, and doctrinal scholarship, as well as interdisciplinary research that makes a substantive contribution to the understanding of law in its social context. Relevant methodological approaches may include qualitative and quantitative empirical research, socio-legal analysis, ethnography, interviews, case studies, comparative research, mixed methods, and theoretically informed doctrinal research.
Lentera Masyarakat Hukum particularly values scholarship that moves beyond the description or exposition of legal rules to critically
