Expiration dates: Performative illusions of law and regulation
-
Sarah Marusek
Abstract
Expiration dates on perishable food items provide some indication as to when the item was produced and how long it’s been sitting on the shelf. However, in the United States, expiration dates are voluntary and subjectively characterize the quality of food as such dates, implemented by the food’s manufacturer, are not legally mandated. Culturally speaking then, why do we pay so much attention to them? This paper will examine the relationship between expiration dates on food and the visual-based perceptions about law that inform these socio-legal semiotics of regulation while exploring the complexity of law concerning the symbolism, construction, and reception of such labels as either legal truth or legal fiction.
Acknowledgments
This paper was presented at the 2014 American Political Science Association Meeting in Washington D.C. I would like to express my appreciation to fellow members of the “Seeing is Believing” panel and to the audience for their insights, humor, and encouragement.
References
Brigham, John. 1987. Cult of the court. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Brigham, John. 2009. Material law: A jurisprudence of what’s real. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Search in Google Scholar
California Department of Public Health, Food, and Drug Branch. 2013. Close up on food labels: Information for food processors. http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/Documents/fdblabel.pdf (accessed1 August 2014).Search in Google Scholar
Druzin, Bryan H. 2013. Eating peas with one’s fingers: A semiotic approach to law and social norms. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 26(2). 257–274.10.1007/s11196-012-9271-zSearch in Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia & Susan S. Silbey. 1998. The common place of law: Stories from everyday life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226212708.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Fuller, Lon L. 1995. Positivism and fidelity to law – a reply to Professor Hart. In Joel Feinberg & Hyman Gross (eds.), Philosophy of Law, 5th edn., 73–87. New York: Wadsworth.Search in Google Scholar
Goodrich, Peter. 2014. Devising law: On the philosophy of legal emblems. In Anne Wagner & Richard K. Sherwin (eds.), Law, culture, and visual studies, 3–24. New York: Springer.10.1007/978-90-481-9322-6_1Search in Google Scholar
Harcar, Talha & Fahri Karakaya. 2005. A cross-cultural exploration of attitudes toward product expiration dates. Psychology & Marketing 22(4). 353–371.10.1002/mar.20063Search in Google Scholar
Heritier, Paulo. 2014. Law and image: Towards a theory of nomograms. In Anne Wagner & Richard K. Sherwin (eds.), Law, culture, and visual studies, 25–48. New York: Springer.10.1007/978-90-481-9322-6_2Search in Google Scholar
Levinson, Sanford. 1988. Constitutional faith. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.10.2307/1288305Search in Google Scholar
Marusek, Sarah. 2005. Wheelchair as semiotic: Space governance of the American handicapped parking space. Law Text Culture 9. 177–188.Search in Google Scholar
Marusek, Sarah. 2012. Politics of parking: Rights, identity, and property. London: Ashgate.Search in Google Scholar
Marusek, Sarah. 2014. Visual jurisprudence of the American yellow traffic light. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 27(1). 183–191.10.1007/s11196-013-9323-zSearch in Google Scholar
Messner, Claudius. 2012. “Living law”: Performative, not discursive. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 25(4). 537–522.10.1007/s11196-011-9232-ySearch in Google Scholar
Milne, Richard. 2013. Arbiters of waste: Date labels, the consumer and knowing good, safe food. Sociological Review 60(S2). 84–101.10.1111/1467-954X.12039Search in Google Scholar
Tsiros, Michael & Carrie M. Heilman. 2005. The effect of expiration dates and perceived risk on purchasing behavior in grocery stores. Journal of Marketing 69(2). 114–129.10.1509/jmkg.69.2.114.60762Search in Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 1990. Why people obey the law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Valverde, Mariana. 2003. Law’s dream of a common knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Valverde, Mariana. 2006. Law and order: Images, meanings, myths. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Yanow, Dvora & Peregrine Schwartz-Shea. 2006. Doing social science in a humanistic manner. In Dvora Yanow & Peregrine Schwartz-Shea (eds.), Interpretation and method: Empirical research methods and the interpretive turn, 380–394. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Search in Google Scholar
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- La sémiotique juridique verbale et nonverbale comme stratégie de communication du droit: Signs, symbols, and meanings in law
- “Verbal and nonverbal” in semiotics
- The frowning balance: Semiotic insinuations on the visual rhetoric of justice
- Semiotics of visual evidence in law
- Observing laws through “understanding eyes”
- Interpreting law in socio-pragmatic space
- Conceptualizing cultural discrepancies in legal translation: A case-based study
- The first integrated practice of legal translation in modern China: A study of the Chinese translation of Elements of International Law, 1864
- Translations of early Sino-British treaties and the masked western legal concepts
- “Susanna and the Elders”: On the visual semiotic of shame
- Angels, warriors, and beacons: Totemic law, territorial coding, and monumental sculpture in post-industrial landscapes
- Expiration dates: Performative illusions of law and regulation
- From immunity to immunity. From immunity to silence: The case of Gilad Sharon
- Under western eyes: Articulation between indigenous justice and the national judicial system
- Police interpreting: The facts sheet
- The influence of legal tradition on Italian arbitration discourse
- Weighing and balancing of principles in cases with rule paradoxes
- “You have to teach the judge what to do”: Semiotic gaps between unrepresented litigants and the common law
- The semiotic interpretation of legal subjects in China’s new criminal procedure law
- Mission impossible? Judges’ playing of dual roles as adjudicator and mediator in Chinese court conciliation
- “Is it the case that … ?”: Building toward findings of fact in Japanese criminal trials
- Institutional interaction in traffic law enforcement in China: Resistance and obedience
- Duppying yoots in a dog eat dog world, kmt: Determining the senses of slang terms for the Courts
- Les structures sémantiques profondes du code pénal chinois
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- La sémiotique juridique verbale et nonverbale comme stratégie de communication du droit: Signs, symbols, and meanings in law
- “Verbal and nonverbal” in semiotics
- The frowning balance: Semiotic insinuations on the visual rhetoric of justice
- Semiotics of visual evidence in law
- Observing laws through “understanding eyes”
- Interpreting law in socio-pragmatic space
- Conceptualizing cultural discrepancies in legal translation: A case-based study
- The first integrated practice of legal translation in modern China: A study of the Chinese translation of Elements of International Law, 1864
- Translations of early Sino-British treaties and the masked western legal concepts
- “Susanna and the Elders”: On the visual semiotic of shame
- Angels, warriors, and beacons: Totemic law, territorial coding, and monumental sculpture in post-industrial landscapes
- Expiration dates: Performative illusions of law and regulation
- From immunity to immunity. From immunity to silence: The case of Gilad Sharon
- Under western eyes: Articulation between indigenous justice and the national judicial system
- Police interpreting: The facts sheet
- The influence of legal tradition on Italian arbitration discourse
- Weighing and balancing of principles in cases with rule paradoxes
- “You have to teach the judge what to do”: Semiotic gaps between unrepresented litigants and the common law
- The semiotic interpretation of legal subjects in China’s new criminal procedure law
- Mission impossible? Judges’ playing of dual roles as adjudicator and mediator in Chinese court conciliation
- “Is it the case that … ?”: Building toward findings of fact in Japanese criminal trials
- Institutional interaction in traffic law enforcement in China: Resistance and obedience
- Duppying yoots in a dog eat dog world, kmt: Determining the senses of slang terms for the Courts
- Les structures sémantiques profondes du code pénal chinois
