This book investigates the many ways in which contemporary African fiction has reflected on themes of responsibility and complicity during the postcolonial period. Covering the authors Ayi Kwei Armah, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nuruddin Farah, Michiel Heyns, and J. M. Coetzee, the book places each writer’s novels in their cultural and literary context in order to investigate similarities and differences between fictional approaches to individual complicity in politically unstable situations. In doing so, the study focuses on these texts’ representations of discomforting experiences of being implicated in harm done to others in order to show that it is precisely during times of political crisis that questions of moral responsibility and implicatedness in compromised conduct become more pronounced. The study also challenges longstanding western amnesia concerning responsibility for historical and present-day violence in African countries and juxtaposes this denial of responsibility with the western literary readership’s consumption of narratives of African “suffering.” The study instead proposes new reading habits based on an awareness of readerly complicity and responsibility. Drawing insights from across political philosophy and literary theory, this book will be of interest to researchers of African literature, postcolonial studies, and peace and conflict studies.

This title was first published in 2001. In the Nordic countries women are considered equal to men. Advanced social and economic rights are often given as the explanation for the equality. In this volume, Nordic feminist legal scholars give a more contradictory image of gender equality. The gendered construction of the legal subject and the legal understanding of gender have a two-pronged potential, both to change and to reproduce gender relations. Nordic women have been considered responsible for upholding the gendered social system - as "responsible selves" rather than as individuals engaged in rights discourse. The authors claim, with examples, that the belief in equality has made certain discriminative practices difficult to recognize and conceptualize. Also a transformation of the social welfare system puts the collective equality policies to the test.

This title was first published in 2001. In the Nordic countries women are considered equal to men. Advanced social and economic rights are often given as the explanation for the equality. In this volume, Nordic feminist legal scholars give a more contradictory image of gender equality. The gendered construction of the legal subject and the legal understanding of gender have a two-pronged potential, both to change and to reproduce gender relations. Nordic women have been considered responsible for upholding the gendered social system - as "responsible selves" rather than as individuals engaged in rights discourse. The authors claim, with examples, that the belief in equality has made certain discriminative practices difficult to recognize and conceptualize. Also a transformation of the social welfare system puts the collective equality policies to the test.

This book investigates the many ways in which contemporary African fiction has reflected on themes of responsibility and complicity during the postcolonial period. Covering the authors Ayi Kwei Armah, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nuruddin Farah, Michiel Heyns, and J. M. Coetzee, the book places each writer's novels in their cultural and literary context in order to investigate similarities and differences between fictional approaches to individual complicity in politically unstable situations. In doing so, the study focuses on these texts' representations of discomforting experiences of being implicated in harm done to others in order to show that it is precisely during times of political crisis that questions of moral responsibility and implicatedness in compromised conduct become more pronounced. The study also challenges longstanding western amnesia concerning responsibility for historical and present-day violence in African countries and juxtaposes this denial of responsibility with the western literary readership's consumption of narratives of African "suffering." The study instead proposes new reading habits based on an awareness of readerly complicity and responsibility. Drawing insights from across political philosophy and literary theory, this book will be of interest to researchers of African literature, postcolonial studies, and peace and conflict studies.

This book offers an in-depth and critical analysis of the Istanbul Convention, along with discussions on its impact and implications. The work highlights the place of the Convention in the landscape of international law and policies on violence against women and equality. The authors argue that the Convention with its emphasis on integrated and comprehensive policies has an important role in promoting equality, but they also note the debates on "genderism" that the Convention has triggered in some member states. The book analyses central concepts of the Convention, including violence, gender and due diligence. It takes up major commitments of the parties to the Convention, including support and services to victims, criminal law provisions and protection of migrant women against violence. The book thus makes a major contribution to the development of national laws, policies and practice. It provides a valuable guide for policy-makers, students and academics in international human rights law, criminal and social law, social policy, social work and gender studies.

This book offers an in-depth and critical analysis of the Istanbul Convention, along with discussions on its impact and implications. The work highlights the place of the Convention in the landscape of international law and policies on violence against women and equality. The authors argue that the Convention with its emphasis on integrated and comprehensive policies has an important role in promoting equality, but they also note the debates on "genderism" that the Convention has triggered in some member states. The book analyses central concepts of the Convention, including violence, gender and due diligence. It takes up major commitments of the parties to the Convention, including support and services to victims, criminal law provisions and protection of migrant women against violence. The book thus makes a major contribution to the development of national laws, policies and practice. It provides a valuable guide for policy-makers, students and academics in international human rights law, criminal and social law, social policy, social work and gender studies.

After a long period of prosperity and steady economic growth, the world's leading economies are now in crisis, and although there will be debate about its origins, the scale and seriousness of the crisis is in no doubt. There is also no doubt that excessive amounts of consumer credit, allied to a weak understanding of how globalised credit markets might react to a crisis, have played a significant part. This book, which is primarily about credit, debt and the trouble they have led to, is written by authors who have specialised in researching into over-indebtedness, that is, situations in which an individual's debt burden has become overwhelming. For these authors the plight of individuals is a primary concern, but the wider issue is how credit is used and how it changes societies. The essays in this volume, addressing topics which are fundamental to our understanding of the current crisis, range widely across the whole sector of consumer finance, including mortgages, 'credit-binges', the regulation of consumer lending, insolvency, repayment plans, debt counselling and much more besides. The conclusions drawn from the book are equally wide-ranging, but above all the lesson learned from these essays is that the financialisation of contemporary life ensures that issues of the appropriate role of credit remain of critical importance in society.

Consumer Bankruptcy and over-indebtedness is an emerging field throughout the world. This book provides a comparative appraisal of global developments in this area. It is one of the first book length publications focusing on comparative consumer bankruptcy and over-indebtedness. It combines theoretical and empirical studies of bankruptcy regimes and consumer credit in civilian and common law jurisdictions as well as exploring current reform trends. The book will be of interest to academics, policymakers and law reformers as well as to practitioners.