A reflection on 30 years of complementary collaboration

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12283
AuthorBRYANT GARTH,YVES DEZALAY
Published date01 March 2021
Date01 March 2021
DOI: ./j ols.
ARTICLE
A reflection on  years of complementary
collaboration
YVES DEZALAY1BRYANT GARTH2
Centre Européen de Sociologie et de
Sciences Politiques (CESSP), Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS),BoulevardRaspail,Paris
, France
School of Law, University of California
Irvine,  East Peltason Drive, Irvine,
California , USA
Correspondingauthor
BryantGarth, School of Law, University of
CaliforniaIrvine,  East Peltason Drive,
Irvine,California , USA
Email:BGARTH@law.uci.edu
Abstract
This article, invited by the editors, provides us with an
opportunity to reflect on a scholarly collaboration of
more than  years. Looking backwards, we believe our
success has come in part from the different backgrounds
that we bring to our collaboration. It also comes from the
fact that neither of us at the time we met was comfort-
able with the scholarly models that we were intellectu-
ally programmed to pursue in our individual careers. We
discuss not only what our collaboration has produced,
but also the pragmatic and serendipitous elements that
have gone into working out and defining our research
approach, and how that approach has changed in rela-
tion to the shifting scholarly context and related changes
in the global political economy, our own ambitions, and
opportunities and obstacles that have at times shifted
our focus. Our individual and collective career trajec-
tories also say something about the scholarly fields in
whichwehaveoperated.
 INTRODUCTION
We are grateful to the Journal of Law and Society for inviting us to write this article. The two
of us have collaborated on projects from  through to the present. We have written or edited
seven books and numerous articles. By many measures, including awards, our collaboration has
been successful in our home countries and outside. Our success comes in part from the different
backgrounds that we bring to our collaboration. It also comes froma similarity. Neither of us at the
©  The Author.Journal of Law and Society ©  Cardiff University Law School
J. Law Soc. ;:–. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jols
J  L S
time we met was comfortable with the scholarly models that we were intellectually programmed
to pursue in our individual careers.
This article provides an opportunity to reflect not only on what our collaboration has produced,
but also on the pragmatic and serendipitous elements that have gone into working out and defin-
ing our research approach, and how that approach has changed in relationto the shifting scholarly
context and related changes in the global political economy,our own ambitions, and opportunities
and obstacles that have at times shifted our focus. Our individual and collective career trajectories
also say something about the scholarly fields in which we have operated.
INITIAL CAREER TRAJECTORIES AND GETTING TOGETHER
We met at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association (LSA) in Chicago in  and
again a little later at a conference on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in Boston. Bryant was
charged at the Boston conference with presenting and commenting on Yves’ work on interna-
tional commercial arbitration and ADR in France. Bryant had an interest because he had come
across a number of international arbitrators through his involvementwith the International Asso-
ciation of Procedural Law.International commercial arbitration was intriguing as an arcane aca-
demic subject with a field of prestigious arbitrators. Bryant commented that it would be great
to enlarge the research beyond Paris. Yves stated that he lacked resources on his side to expand
the research. Together (with another collaborator who dropped out), we submitted a successful
National Science Foundation (NSF) grant proposal. Atthe time, Bryant was Dean at Indiana Uni-
versity School of Law in Bloomington, and it was not clear how much time he could commit.
Happily, however, he became Director of the American Bar Foundation (ABF) in . We then
had funding from both the NSF and the ABF to begin our research and our actual collaboration.
In retrospect, both of us were looking to shift direction in our respective careers. We were not
comfortable in the lanes that were readily available. Yveshad already taken a new path, deciding
not to continue with statistical work and becoming a Bourdieu doctoral student trying to oper-
ate outside of the French context that defined Bourdieu’s work at that point. Bryant came from
the law and society world where scholarship was supposed to show how legal reforms, properly
implemented, would lead to progressive legal and political change, and that path to him seemed
increasingly formulaic and a dead end in the late s. Bryant had also become Dean at a young
age but did not want to become only an administrator.
Yves went to Sciences Po between  and , then took a preparatory course in /
for the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), the prestigious school for training high-ranking
officials in the French government. He then began to earn money by conducting some biblio-
graphical research for Alain Darbel, a French sociologist. That position led to work with Pierre
Bourdieu, who was beginning what would become the book The State Nobility.Bourdieu sought
interviewers close to the ENA milieu, including Yves, and Yves conducted more than  inter-
views with ENA graduates in the year that he prepared for the exam. He found the experience
enriching, and indeed it dissuaded him from pursuing the path towards the elite French bureau-
cracy. He also learned from Bourdieu, who was always asking the interviewers, ‘What did you
P.Bourdieu, The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power ().

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT