Legal Mobilization Among Minority Cultural Groups: Rights Claims and Institutional Response
Keywords:
Legal mobilization, minority cultural groups, rights claims, institutional response, legal consciousness, cultural recognition, qualitative research, TehranAbstract
This study aimed to explore how members of minority cultural groups in Tehran interpret rights violations, transform everyday grievances into legal claims, and experience institutional responses when seeking recognition, protection, or redress. This qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with 24 participants from minority cultural groups residing in Tehran. Participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling to ensure diversity in gender, age, educational background, cultural affiliation, and prior experience with rights-related claims. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation was achieved, with saturation reached after the twenty-first interview and confirmed through three additional interviews. Interviews focused on participants’ experiences of legal awareness, rights-claiming, institutional access, documentation practices, administrative encounters, and perceived barriers to legal recognition. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis. NVivo software was used to organize transcripts, support coding, compare emerging categories, and develop thematic patterns. Trustworthiness was enhanced through member checking, peer review of codes, reflexive memo-writing, and an audit trail. Four main categories emerged from the analysis: transforming cultural grievances into rights claims, reliance on informal and formal support structures, institutional filtering of minority claims, and partial recognition with limited substantive change. Participants described rights-claiming as a gradual process shaped by legal consciousness, collective memory, social networks, and perceived institutional risk. Although legal language helped participants make their claims more legitimate, institutional responses were often procedural, delayed, or symbolic. Participants reported that successful mobilization depended less on individual knowledge alone and more on access to mediators, lawyers, community leaders, civil associations, and sympathetic officials. Legal mobilization among minority cultural groups is a culturally embedded and institutionally mediated process. While rights discourse can empower marginalized communities to articulate claims, institutional responsiveness remains uneven when recognition is not accompanied by procedural accessibility, material resources, and culturally competent administrative practice.
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