Presentator: Thomas Windisch (Université de Sherbrooke)
Summary: The communication will present a method aimed at promoting the reflexivity of the legal researcher with regard to his own discourse. This production method relies on narrative processes to accentuate the fictional character of scientific discourse. Thus, the researcher, at the end of the reformulation of the reading pact between himself and his reader, becomes a narrator addressing a narratee.
Starting from the premise that the object of legal knowledge is "legal discourse", in all its forms (laws, jurisprudence, doctrine, etc.), it is possible to admit the fictitious nature of law as textual material. Based on this postulate, scientific production in law, written as a literary work, has certain virtues. Among them, a possible answer (among many others) to the epistemological problem concerning the conditions of objectivity of researchers in law. More specifically, the constructivist stance has allowed jurists to broaden their field of study and develop methods of critical analysis (including interdisciplinary methods) to resolve contemporary legal issues. However, constructivism carries the risk of too much subjectivity on the part of researchers, because the method, but also the object of research, can be tailor-made according to a problem.
The methodological challenge then becomes to frame the relativism that stems from these subjective choices in order to cultivate a critical relationship to knowledge. A solution commonly claimed is the adoption of a reflective posture by researchers, i.e. the reflection of the individual vis-à-vis his own subjectivity throughout his research process. However, how to highlight these processes in the research, as presented to the interlocutors and interlocutors?
The proposed method of narration, claiming a relationship with the Law and Literature movement, will answer this question. It will be based on the example of the use of elements of a novelistic work, namely La vie mode d’emploi by Georges Perec, in the legal treatment of the theme of civil disobedience.
Image: Bertall, Coupe d'un immeuble parisien, le 1 janvier 1845.