Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: A Man's Word: Dispute Resolution in an Egyptian Port

PI和Co-PI：塔拉勒阿萨德和克莉丝汀黑格尔（合作PI）标题：博士论文研究：一个人的话：在埃及港口纠纷解决0716100项目摘要这个定性研究项目调查如何港口赛义德，埃及居民解决共同的民事纠纷，使最大的空间在法律和法律的边缘。 它审查了社会背景下的争端，以观察获得解决的各种手段，不仅考虑到争端解决过程的“法律的”方面，如聘请律师、提起损害赔偿诉讼和法院诉讼，而且考虑到谈判和调解的同时和重叠过程以及半法律的“习惯”文件（muharrar 'urfi）的使用。 因此，这项研究强调了“习俗”（“urf”），各种想象和制定，和法律之间的复杂和渗透的关系。 研究提出了这样的问题：人们在纠纷解决中何时援引法律，这种援引采取什么形式？ 此外，律师如何以及为什么促进在民事纠纷中使用多种资源？最后，人们如何通过分层的法律的和非法律的策略来塑造法律的含义和作用，以及这可能告诉我们当代埃及“习俗”的含义是什么？ 将通过与涉及法律的纠纷或考虑采取法律的行动的人员进行访谈和讨论来收集数据。 还将从二手资料中获取数据，包括法律的文件、当地报纸和其他当地出版的历史、社会经济和法律的材料。本研究与先前关于争议解决的工作相结合，旨在重新审视争议理论化中的一些关键假设。 特别是，法院的正式环境和非正式调解，谈判和和解过程的领域之间的典型的分析划分在这里被重新设想为根本上交织在一起，而不是明确划分为单独的行动和规则领域。这种定性研究也将为中东法律的形式主义和历史研究提供必要的补充。 例如，尽管有大量关于埃及民法典发展的学术著作，以及伊斯兰教法在许多中东国家的范围和权威不断缩小，但当实际案件出现在法庭上时会发生什么，以及人们如何通过援引、引用和解释法律来解决问题，还有很多东西需要理解。这项研究将提供对法律的比较工作至关重要的质量数据，从而产生更广泛的影响。 当代地缘政治学揭示了对中东地区日常生活中法律是如何生活和部署的知识的缺乏，这项研究旨在作为一个急需的纠正。 特别是，对调解做法和习惯文件的关注旨在使对习惯法如何进入中东当代城市生活的理想化理解复杂化。 本研究认为，解决争端的过程，以解决更广泛的问题，法律的权威在中东，特别是在专制统治的背景下，并试图证明人们如何，把事情“到自己的手中”，重塑正义，义务和权利的含义。 研究的传播将采取几种形式，包括：在2007年法律与社会协会会议和美国人类学协会2007年年会上提交研究论文，未来在学术期刊上发表论文，并将完成的论文副本提供给埃及的一些学术机构，以建立在萨伊德港现有的知识体系上，埃及境内的社区。

PI and Co-PI: Talal Asad and Christine Hegel (co-PI)Title: Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Man's Word: Dispute Resolution in an Egyptian Port0716100Project AbstractThis qualitative research project investigates how inhabitants of Port Sa'id, Egypt resolve common civil disputes by making the most of spaces in the law and on the margins of law. It examines disputes in social context in order to observe the various means by which resolutions are obtained, taking into account not only 'legal' aspects of the dispute resolution process, such as hiring a lawyer, raising an action for damages, and court proceedings, but also simultaneous and overlapping processes of negotiation and mediation and the use of semi-legal 'customary' documents (muharrar 'urfi). As such, the study highlights the complex and permeable relationship between 'custom' ('urf), variously imagined and enacted, and law. The research poses the questions: When do people invoke the law in dispute resolution, and what form does this invocation take? Further, how and why do lawyers facilitate the use of multiple resources in civil disputes? Finally, how do people shape what the law means and can do by layering legal and non-legal strategies, and what might this tell us about the meaning of 'custom' in contemporary Egypt? Data will be collected through interviews and discussions with those involved in legal disputes or contemplating legal action. Data will also be drawn from secondary sources, including legal documents, local newspapers, and other locally published historical, socio-economic, and legal materials. This study engages with prior work on dispute resolution towards the goal of re-examining some critical assumptions in the theorization of disputing. In particular, the typical analytical divide between the formal milieu of the courts and the realm of informal mediation, negotiation, and reconciliation processes is herein re-envisioned as fundamentally intertwined, rather than clearly demarcated as separate spheres of action and rules. This qualitative research will also provide a necessary complement to formalistic and historical studies of law in the Middle East. Despite the abundance of scholarly work on the development of the Egyptian civil code, for instance, and the diminishing scope and authority of shari'a in many Middle Eastern countries, there is much to be understood about what happens when actual cases are presented in court, and about how people resolve problems by invoking, referencing, and interpreting the law. The research will have broader impacts by contributing qualitative data critical for comparative work on legal systems. Contemporary geopolitics reveal the dearth of knowledge about how the law is lived and deployed in everyday life in the Middle East, and this study is intended as a much-needed corrective. In particular, the attention paid to mediation practices and customary documents is designed to complicate idealized understandings of how customary law enters into contemporary urban life in the Middle East. This study considers dispute resolution processes in order to address broader questions of legal authority in the Middle East, particularly in the context of authoritarian rule, and seeks to demonstrate how people, by taking things 'into their own hands', remake the meanings of justice, obligation, and right. Dissemination of the research will take several forms, including: presentation of papers on the research at the 2007 Law and Society Association Conference and at the American Anthropological Association 2007 Annual Meetings, future publications in scholarly journals, and by giving copies of the completed dissertation to a number of academic institutions in Egypt to build upon the body of knowledge available on Port Sa'id and it's communities within Egypt.