The Force of Dispositifs

Abstract

The 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 clear 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 the conceptual and methodological levels is thus worthwhile, and this article is a contribution to that end. The first section sets out the results of our 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 around a criminal trial, the practices of lawyers in the courtroom, the reactions of victims of a medical scandal to a compensation fund, and the historical transformation of dispositifs of redress for medical accidents since the beginning of the nineteenth century. This enables us to clarify the approach we propose and to suggest new avenues for the future.