The sociology of law has been dominated by studies of officials and formal institutions and their work products. Studying the emergence and transformation of disputes means studying a social process as it occurs. It means studying the conditions under which injuries are peceived or go unnoticed and how people respond to the experience of injustice and conflict. This chapter provides a framework within which the emergence and transformation of disputes can be described. It describes the study of transformations with the belief that the antecedents of disputing are as problematic and as interesting as the disputes that may ultimately emerge. The chapter begins by setting the stages in the development of disputes and the activities connecting one stage to the next. Trouble, problems, personal and social dislocation are everyday occurrences. Learning more about the existence, absence, or reversal of these basic transformations increase our understanding of the disputing process and our ability to evaluate dispute processing institutions.
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