Governance before the courts: family disputes, legal pluralism and institutional translation in Uzbekistan

Disputes are often shaped through multiple social and institutional processes long before they reach formal adjudication. Drawing on qualitative socio-legal fieldwork conducted in Uzbekistan between 2022 and 2026, this article develops the concept of governance before the courts to explain how disputes are progressively shaped through successive stages of household negotiation, kinship mediation, community intervention, religious consultation, administrative assessment and judicial formalisation. Focusing on divorce and child custody disputes, the article demonstrates that courts adjudicate conflicts whose factual narratives, normative meanings and evidentiary foundations have already been assembled across multiple institutional settings. Building on scholarship in legal pluralism, the sociology of law and legal anthropology, it argues that institutional translation transforms socially embedded community knowledge and assessments into legally relevant evidence that can inform judicial decision-making. The article contributes to socio-legal scholarship by conceptualising family disputes as dynamic governance trajectories through which disputes become legal cases before entering the courtroom.