Dispositifs And Normativity

Starting from a discussion of the uses of the notion of dispositif in the social sciences, the article offers a sociological approach to normativity, illustrated by observations relating to a criminal hearing. Pragmatic sociology is thus reassessed in its contributions as well as other research currents which have also taken advantage, since the 1970s, of the heuristic character of the concept of dispositif: Foucauldian approaches; material-semiotic; study of interactions with artefacts from ethnomethodology. The article indicates in particular how to place the study of the valuation processes around the dispositifs at the heart of the inquiry.