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10670/1.pyg488

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The Practical Grammar of Law and Its Relation to Time

Abstract

International audience For people committed to a given course of action, the objectivity of social facts is a non-reflexive resource which is organized in a way constrained by the conditions, context and purposes of the situation. This objectivity has a "practical grammar" which relates multiple times and sites. In a succession of takes and retakes, the documentation of the past period to which it is referred proceeds through the objectivizing mise en abyme of the facts, events or objects in question: the present organizes the referred-to past within a local structure of relevance. Praxiological sociology-of law among other subjects-has often been criticized for being micro-sociological and, consequently, of being unable to encompass broader "social structures" and their historical dimension (i.e. time in the sense of longue durée). We would like to show that such criticism does not survive the challenge of actual praxiological inquiry. The praxiological study of law is neither "micro" nor "macro". Macro-sociological relevancies find their place in such inquiry, insofar as they are of concern to the people whose practices are under study. Historical temporality is therefore integral to such practices, on the condition however that it is relevant to people committed to a given course of action and not of suppositions which are specific to and imposed by the sociologist. In this chapter, we address members' orientations to the temporal dimension of law. In order to do this, we will analyze how the practical grammar of law unfolds in situations beyond those involving immediate co-presence, before addressing how members sequentially weave the law into such situations. Secondly, we will specifically address the role that time and history can play in such an approach. At each stage we will present legislative and judicial material that enables us to make our case. More precisely, we shall examine extracts from parliamentary debates, court decisions and family law proceedings in Egypt. Among other things, we will show how a network of legal and judicial bodies, and the historicity of their actions, are endogenously objectivized by the parties involved in the particular courses of action. It should be noted, however, that the chapter has a

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