The creation of the profanes: the “juges de proximité” in their work

SimThis paper develops an analysis about the work of the “juges de proximité” in the French southern Courts. The field work concentrates in the hearings observation and interviews with the “juges de proximité” . The observations have occurred in the Small Courts of Montpellier, Nîmes and Béziers which have different sizes and different number of judges. I did 15 recorded interviews with “juges de proximité” from the region of an hour each one along the springtime 2008. The “juges de proximité” were created in 2003. However, the “juges de proximité” have all a law graduation: all of them are lawyers, counselors in activity, retired professors, public notary or even retired judges. I want to describe the process which these judges become “profanes-in-action”. They deal with the professionals all the time and this relation become complicated, because they find objective obstacles that trouble them to accomplish their activities, like the material restrictions, as the lack of bureau; how they do the hearings or write the judgments; and even the “innocent jokes” from the professionals about them which indicate the institutional context. In this specific environment, they find concrete constraints, which trouble them to work like the professional judges