The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life

By Patricia Ewick and Susan S. Silbey

Book Overview

Why do some people not hesitate to call the police to quiet a barking dog in the middle of the night, while others accept the pain and losses associated with defective products, unsuccesful surgery, and discrimination? Patricia Ewick and Susan Silbey collected accounts of the law from more than four hundred people of diverse backgrounds in order to explore the different ways that people use and experience it. Their fascinating and original study identifies three common narratives of law that are captured in the stories people tell.

One narrative is based on an idea of the law as magisterial and remote. Another views the law as a game with rules that can be manipulated to one's advantage. A third narrative describes the law as an arbitrary power that is actively resisted. Drawing on these extensive case studies, Ewick and Silbey present individual experiences interwoven with an analysis that charts a coherent and compelling theory of legality. A groundbreaking study of law and narrative, The Common Place of Law depicts the institution as it is lived: strange and familiar, imperfect and ordinary, and at the center of daily life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226227448
• ISBN13: 9780226227443
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Analysis of The Common Place of Law

The Common Place of Law, by Ewick and Silbey, asserts that law exists autonomous from while being constitutive of daily life, with legality defined as a social structure actively and constantly produced in what people say and do. Based on this conception, the authors interviewed a random sample of 430 adults in New Jersey to gain insights into their interactions, finding that people act before, with, or against the law. While this analysis brings forward interesting issues, it left many questions. First, there are basic questions regarding methodology. A random sample that only takes into account adults in New Jersey may not get a wide range of people's experiences with the law given that New Jersey has different laws, methods of judicial administration, and enforcement policies than does other states. A further methodological issue concerns the fact that the interviews took 2-3 hours, eliminating those who do not have that much free time. Second, the authors left the reification issue partially unexplained. It is asserted that individuals construct meanings that, once institutionalized, become part of the systems that constrain future meaning making; when are these ideas are constructed, how long do they take to reify, and how do they change after reification? Further, because Ewick and Silbey's theory allows for schemas to change with the introduction of new information, can reification, which by definition concerns treating something as a concrete entity, ever really occur? A schema is undoubtedly difficult to change, but it is not impossible to change, thus perhaps reification is not the proper term given the challenge at hand. Third, the idea of law being autonomous from while at the same time constitutive of everyday life is afflicted by the problem of dualism--if there is a duality between that which affects and that which is affected, then how are the two mediated? In other words, if law is both particular and general, then how is the particularity linked to the generality? Rather than a duality, perhaps the authors could argue for a unity in which all things coexist, thus each is able to influence the other. Fourth, more information on how societal schemas change over time would be helpful. If schemas can be changed by new information, how is this new information accepted, and why are some pieces of new information accepted while others are not? Using the authors' example of witchcraft, why is it that Americans by and large no longer subscribe to paganism, while in some areas it is still practiced? Some schemas must be more rigid than others, but why is this especially given the fact that the same information is available to most everyone? In summary, the authors brought forward some interesting points, but further explanation would be enlightening.

An excellent, meticulously researched book.

The richness of this book comes from four hundred thirty interviews that support the text. The gist of the book is that people have three takes on the law: before the law, against the law, and with the law. "Before the law" is an attitude of awe and respect for the institution. Faith in that day in court, that statue of blind justice and the policeman is my friend. "Against the law" is an attitude of resistance to the institution. Law as a caprice of the powerful, and resistance the right way to deal with it. "With the law" is an attitude of game playing with the institution. I didn't make the rules, but me and my lawyer, we sure as hell will play the game. People shift and change among these modes depending on where they are in life, the particulars of the situation, and growing experience with the law.The biggest contribution of this book is in highlighting the game playing aspect of dealing with law. I think game-playing gets short shrift from other law authors who may be stuck inside their very serious institution. Most other books reduce game-playing to simple economic theory and don't pay enough attention to the human side of gaming with the law. I mean, really. Just look at how big the sports section of the Sunday paper is versus the economic analysis section! Games are a big part of everyday life. Ewick & Silbey give game-playing the appropriate type of attention. Big bravo. My only criticism is that the language of this book is mainly for an academic audience, and thus I give it only four stars-sorry. The writing could be de-academicized and made more powerful and popular. Overall it is an excellent, meticulously researched bookI got the book for its cover-the picture of chairs in newly shoveled parking space. Now that's a real hotbed of attitude in the informal/formal law divide. Thanks to the authors and worker-bees for all their work.

Common Place Of Law is anything but common

The Common Place Of Law is a literate, witty and very well written explanation of how law does and does not work for the people for whom law was created: the common citizen. Using anecdotal material mixed with sociological theory, Ewing and Silbey have created an intelligent mix of the plebeian and the patrician.

A very, very important book for the study of law today.

This book is accessible to many different audiences and is profound in its content. It would be an excellent book for undergraduate education, legal education or, even for pleasure reading. The anecdotal chapters interspersed with the analysis of the role of law in the lives or ordinary Americans makes this sophisticated book about the sociology of law in contemporary society one that should have staying power in the academy as well as more popular venues. What it has to say about law -- that Americans have a complex and sometimes contradictory relationship with the legal system and its promise of justice -- is not surprising as much as it is affirming and explanatory of so much of what we experience these days in the media and popular culture. The method the authors use to tease their thesis is rigorous and convincing, a model of scholarship for students and professionals. The Common Place of Law is a book to which I will refer and which I will reread for years.