Contested Modernities in Masaji Chiba’s Legal Pluralism: An Ethnomethodological Re-reading of Its Accomplishment in Practice

Abstract

This article contributes to the “praxiological turn” in legal pluralism studies by offering an ethnomethodological re-reading of Masaji Chiba’s theory. Responding to critiques of its “rigidity,” it reframes Chiba’s theoretical “three dichotomies” not as static classificatory categories, but as a set of heuristic questions for discovering the practical methods members use to accomplish a pluralistic legal order. This approach reveals how legal pluralism is achieved in situ. It demonstrates that normative tensions—such as official/unofficial—are not pre-existing structures but are dynamically produced by participants in their moment-to-moment interaction. An analysis of Japanese lay judge deliberations illustrates how these dichotomies function as practical resources that members use to organize and negotiate “contested modernities.” This perspective unlocks the potential of Chiba’s legacy for empirically elucidating the interactional foundations of law as a lived phenomenon.