Adjudication in Action: An Ethnomethodology of Law, Morality and Justice (Directions in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis) - Hardcover

Honourable Mention, American Sociological Association's Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Book Awards, 2011-2012 'Based in the analysis of work, sequential organization and membership categorization in a collection of Egyptian legal proceedings including a trial for perversion and debauchery (homosexuality), Dupret gives us the most sustained attempt yet at a praxeology of judicial activity, re-specifying such legal objects as fact, person, intention, cause and judgement in relation to morality (above all), rationality, normality, language, context, rule, action, and text. It's a remarkable tour de force.' Peter Eglin, Wilfred Laurier University, Canada '... informative and stimulating... 'Adjudication in Action' is a very welcome contribution to the ethnomethodological and sociological coverage of actual practice(s) of law in courts and related pre- and post-courtroom bureaucratic activities...' Symbolic Interaction

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.