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6 matches in All Departments
Domestic Violence and the Law in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa
reveals the ways in which domestic space and domestic relationships
take on different meanings in African contexts that extend the
boundaries of family obligation, kinship, and dependency. The term
domestic violence encompasses kin-based violence, marriage-based
violence, gender-based violence, as well as violence between
patrons and clients who shared the same domestic space. As a lived
experience and as a social and historical unit of analysis,
domestic violence in colonial and postcolonial Africa is complex.
Using evidence drawn from Subsaharan Africa, the chapters explore
the range of domestic violence in Africa\u2019s colonial past and
its present, including taxation and the insertion of the household
into the broader structure of colonial domination. African
histories of domestic violence demand that scholars and activists
refine the terms and analyses and pay attention to the historical
legacies of contemporary problems. This collection brings into
conversation historical, anthropological, legal, and activist
perspectives on domestic violence in Africa and fosters a deeper
understanding of the problem of domestic violence, the limits of
international human rights conventions, and local and regional
efforts to address the issue.
"A theoretically sound, gender-specific legal history through the
reading of civil and criminal court records on marriage disputes in
Sikasso, Mali...The book echoes the original contribution of Nkiru
Nzegwu (in Family Matters, 2006) that the oppression and
exploitation of women were at the center of colonial policy.
Burrill analyzes this history of legalized oppression at the local,
national, and transnational levels...Summing up: Recommended."
-CHOICEStates of Marriage shows how throughout the colonial period
in French Sudan (present-day Mali) the institution of marriage
played a central role in how the empire defined its colonial
subjects as gendered persons with certain attendant rights and
privileges. The book is a modern history of the ideological debates
surrounding the meaning of marriage, as well as the associated
legal and sociopolitical practices in colonial and postcolonial
Mali. It is also the first to use declassified court records
regarding colonialist attempts to classify and categorize
traditional marriage conventions in the southern region of the
country. In French Sudan, as elsewhere in colonial Africa, the
first stage of marriage reform consisted of efforts to codify
African marriages, bridewealth transfers, and divorce proceedings
in public records, rendering these social arrangements "legible" to
the colonial administration. Once this essential legibility was
achieved, other, more forceful interventions to control and reframe
marriage became possible. This second stage of marriage reform can
be traced through transformations in and by the colonial court
system, African engagements with state-making processes, and
formations of "gender justice." The latter refers to gender-based
notions of justice and legal rights, typically as defined by
governing and administrative bodies as well as by sociopolitical
communities. Gender justice went through a period of favoring the
rights of women, to a period of favoring patriarchs, to a period of
emphasizing the power of the individual - but all within the
context of a paternalistic and restrictive colonial state.
With forced marriage, as with so many human rights issues, the
sensationalized hides the mundane, and oversimplified popular
discourses miss the range of experiences. In sub-Saharan Africa,
the relationship between coercion and consent in marriage is a
complex one that has changed over time and place, rendering
impossible any single interpretation or explanation. The legal
experts, anthropologists, historians, and development workers
contributing to Marriage by Force? focus on the role that marriage
plays in the mobilization of labor, the accumulation of wealth, and
domination versus dependency. They also address the crucial
slippage between marriages and other forms of gendered violence,
bondage, slavery, and servile status. Only by examining variations
in practices from a multitude of perspectives can we properly
contextualize the problem and its consequences. And while early and
forced marriages have been on the human rights agenda for decades,
there is today an unprecedented level of international attention to
the issue, thus making the coherent, multifaceted approach of
Marriage by Force? even more necessary.
Domestic Violence and the Law in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa
reveals the ways in which domestic space and domestic relationships
take on different meanings in African contexts that extend the
boundaries of family obligation, kinship, and dependency. The term
domestic violence encompasses kin-based violence, marriage-based
violence, gender-based violence, as well as violence between
patrons and clients who shared the same domestic space. As a lived
experience and as a social and historical unit of analysis,
domestic violence in colonial and postcolonial Africa is complex.
Using evidence drawn from Subsaharan Africa, the chapters explore
the range of domestic violence in Africa\u2019s colonial past and
its present, including taxation and the insertion of the household
into the broader structure of colonial domination. African
histories of domestic violence demand that scholars and activists
refine the terms and analyses and pay attention to the historical
legacies of contemporary problems. This collection brings into
conversation historical, anthropological, legal, and activist
perspectives on domestic violence in Africa and fosters a deeper
understanding of the problem of domestic violence, the limits of
international human rights conventions, and local and regional
efforts to address the issue.
"A theoretically sound, gender-specific legal history through the
reading of civil and criminal court records on marriage disputes in
Sikasso, Mali...The book echoes the original contribution of Nkiru
Nzegwu (in Family Matters, 2006) that the oppression and
exploitation of women were at the center of colonial policy.
Burrill analyzes this history of legalized oppression at the local,
national, and transnational levels...Summing up: Recommended."
-CHOICEStates of Marriage shows how throughout the colonial period
in French Sudan (present-day Mali) the institution of marriage
played a central role in how the empire defined its colonial
subjects as gendered persons with certain attendant rights and
privileges. The book is a modern history of the ideological debates
surrounding the meaning of marriage, as well as the associated
legal and sociopolitical practices in colonial and postcolonial
Mali. It is also the first to use declassified court records
regarding colonialist attempts to classify and categorize
traditional marriage conventions in the southern region of the
country. In French Sudan, as elsewhere in colonial Africa, the
first stage of marriage reform consisted of efforts to codify
African marriages, bridewealth transfers, and divorce proceedings
in public records, rendering these social arrangements "legible" to
the colonial administration. Once this essential legibility was
achieved, other, more forceful interventions to control and reframe
marriage became possible. This second stage of marriage reform can
be traced through transformations in and by the colonial court
system, African engagements with state-making processes, and
formations of "gender justice." The latter refers to gender-based
notions of justice and legal rights, typically as defined by
governing and administrative bodies as well as by sociopolitical
communities. Gender justice went through a period of favoring the
rights of women, to a period of favoring patriarchs, to a period of
emphasizing the power of the individual - but all within the
context of a paternalistic and restrictive colonial state.
With forced marriage, as with so many human rights issues, the
sensationalized hides the mundane, and oversimplified popular
discourses miss the range of experiences. In sub-Saharan Africa,
the relationship between coercion and consent in marriage is a
complex one that has changed over time and place, rendering
impossible any single interpretation or explanation. The legal
experts, anthropologists, historians, and development workers
contributing to Marriage by Force? focus on the role that marriage
plays in the mobilization of labor, the accumulation of wealth, and
domination versus dependency. They also address the crucial
slippage between marriages and other forms of gendered violence,
bondage, slavery, and servile status. Only by examining variations
in practices from a multitude of perspectives can we properly
contextualize the problem and its consequences. And while early and
forced marriages have been on the human rights agenda for decades,
there is today an unprecedented level of international attention to
the issue, thus making the coherent, multifaceted approach of
Marriage by Force? even more necessary.
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