Abstract

Social sciences have much to gain by paying particular attention to the place that dispositifs occupy in social life. The utility of such a perspective is evident from an examination of the research that has made use of this notion since the end of the 1970s. Yet in addition to the wide variety of definitions and objectives relating to the concept of dispositif, a reading of these works also reveals some of the difficulties that have been encountered along the way. An effort to clarify and renew the discussion on both conceptual and methodological levels is thus worthwhile, and this article is a contribution to this end. The first section sets out a conceptual inquiry into the notion of dispositif. The second puts forward a series of propositions designed to develop a “processual” approach to dispositifs. Finally, we return to several studies that we have conducted from this perspective relating to the dispositifs of redress, looking at the doctrinal work of jurists involved in a criminal trial, the practices of lawyers in the courtroom, the reactions of victims of a disaster to a compensation fund, and the historical transformations of dispositifs of redress for medical accidents since the beginning of the nineteenth century. This enables us to specify the approach we propose and to suggest new avenues for the future.

Keywords:
sociologycal theory; french pragmatism; dispositifs