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Understanding legal rules not as determinants of behavior but as
points of reference for conduct, this volume considers the ways in
which rules are invoked, referred to, interpreted, put forward or
blurred. It also asks how both legal practitioners and lay
participants conceive of and participate in the construction of
facts and rules, and thus, through decisions, defenses, pleas,
files, evidence, interviews and documents, actively participate in
law's life. With attention to the formulation of notions such as
person, evidence, intention, cause and responsibility in the course
of legal practices, Legal Rules in Practice provides the outlines
of a praxiological anthropology of law - an anthropology that
focuses on words, concepts and reasoning as actively used to solve
conflicts with the help of legal rules. As such, it will appeal to
sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of law with interests in
ethnomethodology, rule-based conduct and practical reasoning.
Understanding legal rules not as determinants of behavior but as
points of reference for conduct, this volume considers the ways in
which rules are invoked, referred to, interpreted, put forward or
blurred. It also asks how both legal practitioners and lay
participants conceive of and participate in the construction of
facts and rules, and thus, through decisions, defenses, pleas,
files, evidence, interviews and documents, actively participate in
law's life. With attention to the formulation of notions such as
person, evidence, intention, cause and responsibility in the course
of legal practices, Legal Rules in Practice provides the outlines
of a praxiological anthropology of law - an anthropology that
focuses on words, concepts and reasoning as actively used to solve
conflicts with the help of legal rules. As such, it will appeal to
sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of law with interests in
ethnomethodology, rule-based conduct and practical reasoning.
Adjudication in Action describes the moral dimension of judicial
activities and the judicial approach to questions of morality,
observing the contextualized deployment of various practices and
the activities of diverse people who, in different capacities, find
themselves involved with institutional judicial space. Exploring
the manner in which the enactment of the law is morally
accomplished, and how practical, legal cognition mediates and
modulates the treatment of cases dealing with sexual morality, this
book offers a rich, praxeological study that engages with 'living'
law as it unfolds in action. Inspired by Wittgenstein's later
thought and engaging with recent developments in ethnomethodology
and conversation analysis, Adjudication in Action challenges
approaches that reduce the law to mere provisions of a legal code,
presenting instead an understanding of law as a resource that
stands in need of contextualization. Through the close description
of people's orientation to and reification of legal categories
within the framework of institutional settings, this book
constitutes the first comprehensive study of law in context and in
action.
Adjudication in Action describes the moral dimension of judicial
activities and the judicial approach to questions of morality,
observing the contextualized deployment of various practices and
the activities of diverse people who, in different capacities, find
themselves involved with institutional judicial space. Exploring
the manner in which the enactment of the law is morally
accomplished, and how practical, legal cognition mediates and
modulates the treatment of cases dealing with sexual morality, this
book offers a rich, praxeological study that engages with 'living'
law as it unfolds in action. Inspired by Wittgenstein's later
thought and engaging with recent developments in ethnomethodology
and conversation analysis, Adjudication in Action challenges
approaches that reduce the law to mere provisions of a legal code,
presenting instead an understanding of law as a resource that
stands in need of contextualization. Through the close description
of people's orientation to and reification of legal categories
within the framework of institutional settings, this book
constitutes the first comprehensive study of law in context and in
action.
Irregular or illegal housing constitutes the ordinary condition of
popular urban housing in the Middle East. Considering the
conditions of daily practices related to land and tenure
mobilization and of housing, neighborhood shaping, transactions,
and conflict resolution, this book offers a new reading of
government action in the cities of Amman, Beirut, Damascus,
Istanbul, and Cairo, focussing on the participation of ordinary
citizens and their interactions with state apparatus specifically
located within the urban space. The book adopts a praxeological
approach to law that describes how inhabitants define and exercise
their legality in practice and daily routines. The ambition of the
volume is to restore the continuum in the consolidation, building
after building, of the popular neighborhoods of the cities under
study, while demonstrating the closely-knit social relationships
and other forms of community bonding.
An exploration into the ways in which ethnography can create a
greater understanding of Islam in particular social contexts This
comparative approach to the various uses of the ethnographic method
in research about Islam in anthropology and other social sciences
is particularly relevant in the current climate. Political
discourses and stereotypical media portrayals of Islam as a
monolithic civilisation have prevented the emergence of cultural
pluralism and individual freedom. Such discourses are countered by
the contributors who show the diversity and plurality of Muslim
societies and promote a reflection on how the ethnographic method
allows the description, representation and analysis of the social
and cultural complexity of Muslim societies in the discourse of
anthropology. Key Features * shows the benefit of using ethnography
as a method to engage with and relate to specific empirical
realities * includes case studies on rituals and symbols in Syria,
Tunisia, Damascus, Algeria, Britain, Pakistan, Brazil and Lebanon *
covers practices such as veiling, students' religious practices,
charitable activities, law, and scholarship in Egypt, Jordan,
Turkey and Yemen
This book shows how ethnography can create a greater understanding
of Islam in particular social contexts. Islam is stereotypically
presented as a monolithic civilisation that has stifled the
emergence of cultural pluralism and individual freedom. In
contrast, this volume showcases the diversity and plurality of
Muslim societies. The contributors reflect on how the ethnographic
method allows the description, representation and analysis of the
social and cultural complexity of Muslim societies in the discourse
of anthropology. It shows the benefit of using ethnography as a
method to engage with and relate to specific real-world examples.
It includes case studies on rituals and symbols in Syria, Tunisia,
Damascus, Algeria, Britain, Pakistan, Brazil and Lebanon. It covers
practices such as veiling, students' religious practices,
charitable activities, law and scholarship in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey
and Yemen.
'Standing Trial' focuses on the relationship between the law and
the concept of the person in modern Arab societies. It directly
addresses the questions of continuities, transformations and
ruptures of such notions. Law performs a central function in
revealing social and historical dynamics and in being itself a tool
of its implementation. The introduction of Western-style legal
systems partially led to a transposition of characteristics of
centrality, individualism and secularism. 'Standing' Trial is the
first truly interdisciplinary study of its subject, combining
legal, historical and socio-legal perspectives. It is a highly
original and important contribution to the study both of the
language of law and the history of law in the Middle East.
Contributors include Khaled Fahmy, Mohamed Nachi, Armando
Salvatore, Oussama Arabi and Maurits Berger.
Can the concept of law be indiscriminately extended to times and
places in which it did simply not exist? Such an extension is at
best useless and at worst misleading. Producing an intelligible
jurisprudence of the concept of law means keeping it within the
reasonable boundaries of its contemporary common-sense
understanding: positive law. Parallel to Western societies in which
it firstly emerged, the concept of positive law developed in many
places, including countries characterized as Muslim. There, it
faced other existing normativities, like customs and the Sharia.
This book aims, from the Muslim world's perspective, to clarify the
uses of the concept of law and the ways of studying it, to describe
some of its historical developments, including the ideas of
constitutional law, customary law and forensic evidence, and to
describe present-day practices, including reference to law sources,
rules and interpretation.
The studies in this volume use ethnographic, ethnomethodological,
and sociolinguistic research to demonstrate how legal agents
conduct their practices and exercise their authority in relation to
non-expert participants and broader publics. Instead of treating
law as a body of doctrines, or law and society as a relationship
between legal institutions and an external society, the studies in
this volume closely examine law at work: specific legal practices
and social interactions produced in national and international
settings. These settings include courtrooms and other tribunals,
consultations between lawyers and clients, and media forums in
which government officials address international law. Because law
is a public institution, and legal actions are publicly
accountable, technical law must interface with non-expert members
of the public. The embodied actions and interactions that comprise
the interface between professional and lay participants in legal
settings therefore must do justice to legal traditions and
statutory obligations while also contending with mundane
interactional routines, ordinary reasoning, and popular
expectations. Specific chapters examine topics such as family
disputes in a system of Sharia Law; rhetorical contestations about
possible violations of international law during a violent conflict
in the Middle-East; the transformation of a courtroom hearing
brought about by the virtual presence of remote witnesses relayed
through a video link; the practices through which written records
are used to mediate and leverage a witness's testimony; and the
discursive and interactional practices through which authorized
parties use legal categories to problems with individual conduct.
Each chapter shows that it makes a profound difference to the way
we understand the law when we examine its meaning and application
in practice.
'What Happened?' addresses the thorny issue of truth in law, within
the context of Muslim societies. The truth, in legal terms, is the
version of 'what happened' which carries most authority. This
original and thought-provoking book looks at how this narrative is
constructed in Muslim societies, and which truths are privileged
over others in constructing it. In marriage courts in Egypt for
example the truth is deemed to be a version of events that is
acceptable to both parties. Looking at a range of contrasting case
studies, from Sharia courts to inquiries into police abuse, this
book book explores how ordinary stories are transformed into
authoritative truths. The case studies are situated in the
framework of wider debates about truth, law and power in Middle
Eastern societies.
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