A SOCIOLEGAL TYPOLOGY OF CONTRACTS

By breaking with the restrictive normative conception of contracts, wh ich accords a special place to both the ''science'' of law and an econ omic vision of the contract as a rational choice, the proposal is made to interpret contractual practices in context. The example of a trans national aluminum firm in Quebec serves to build a sociolegal typology of five categories of contracts: legal, regulatory, normalized, commu nitarian and moral. Lessons about the different forms of rationality ( legal, political, economic) underlying contracts are drawn from this e mpirical typology.