ABSTRACT
The present study of two communities in rural India has shown how dispute processing as a social phenomenon within a particular community is a site for interaction between the values of the different types of laws governing it. The nature of these interactions is determined by the community’s sense of order cultivated on the basis of its religious and cultural background and everyday life practices. The influence of state law and its systems, as one such type of law, on communities and their members can be properly assessed only through an analysis of the various translations of state law that occur on account of the processes by way of which a community’s sense of order regulates its interaction with state law. Translation of state law and its systems is the process of giving meaning to the structure and essence of state law and its systems in the context of local circumstances (Merry 2009).
