New Perspectives on the Legal History of the Middle East? Rediscovering Jacques Berque, the “Field Historian”[Note 1. Albergoni, ‘Présentation’. ...]

This article explores Jacques Berque's early works on the legal history and anthropology of the Maghreb, originally published between 1936 and 1958 and republished about a decade ago. In the midst of the current debates about legal reform in the Middle East and North Africa, this paper argues that both Berque's method and his theoretical contributions can serve as a powerful framework to better approach the phenomenon of legal pluralism in the region. Developed at a time when the study of law was strictly divided between Orientalists, anthropologists, and social historians, Berque's truly interdisciplinary method sought to transcend the prevailing barriers and dichotomies by holistically apprehending the “legal life” of the populations studied. Such an approach subsequently allowed him to explore issues of legal and normative pluralism by focusing on the multiple symbioses between sharī‘a and customary law and by considering the region's legal history as a succession of creations, destructions, and revivals of these syntheses.