[Review] Brian Z. Tamanaha, Caroline Sage and Michael Woolcock (editors) (2012) Legal pluralism and development: scholars and practitioners in dialogue.

This book comes at a time of significant policy interest amongst international organisations in legal pluralism and its contribution to development debates. Published a year after the International Development Law Organization’s own series of books on customary justice and legal empowerment (Harper 2011a, 2011b; Ubink and McInerney 2011), this book is the product of a gathering of scholars and practitioners instigated by members of the World Bank’s Justice for the Poor Program on the topic of legal pluralism. The value and uniqueness of the book lies in its bringing together a number of leading scholars and experienced practitioners, highlighting the contemporary relevance of long-standing theoretical debates within legal pluralism to development policy – and vice versa

[Review] Simon Halliday (editor) (2012) An introduction to the study of law

Written for students who are about to study law for the first time, in just 86 pages the contributors to this deceptively simple-looking volume present their readers with an invaluable and sophisticated introduction to the modern study of law as a dynamic and intellectually rich subject. The book was inspired by a teaching team and course at the University of Strathclyde, which sought to provide students with a map reflecting the diversification in modern legal scholarship. As such, it is also a book that will be of interest to lecturers and law schools looking to develop innovative approaches to teaching that draw upon the latest interdisciplinary debates in law, conceptualised (using Downes’ phrase) as “a rendezvous subject” (p. 1)

Women in law and justice

African law and justice systems in the early 21st century are the result of over a thousand years of religious and cultural influences and political change on the continent. As customary and Islamic laws became reinterpreted and formalized by colonial states, women experienced the effects of successive periods of religious and political conquest as an entrenching of patriarchal control in the family and personal law sphere. The 20th century saw African women’s resistance rise from the grass roots as an important force for national liberation. African women’s legal activism grew after political independence and African women lawyers were part of global feminist movements. In the wake of dramatic political changes across Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, the global sphere of rights post-1989 became an enabling frame for women’s legal activism. Political transitions to multiparty democracy, the liberalization of African economies, and a wave of constitutional reforms strengthened women’s rights and gender equality guarantees. The 1980s and 1990s saw the founding of regional and pan-African women’s legal activist organizations, including the Action Committee of Women Living Under Muslim Laws and Women in Law and Development in Africa as well as the adoption of the Maputo Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa in 2003. In the 21st century, while social, economic, and legal inequalities persist in spite of many gains for women’s rights, some African women lawyers have risen to occupy the highest echelons of the judiciary in several countries and in international courts

Researching land and commercial agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa with a gender perspective: concepts, issues and methods

This paper offers critical reflections on the concepts, issues and methods that are important for integrating a gender perspective into mainstream research and policy-making on land and agricultural commercialisation in Africa. It forms part of the Land and Agricultural Commercialisation in Africa (LACA) project undertaken by the Future Agricultures Consortium between 2012 and 2015 and informs the case studies conducted across three countries: Kenya, Ghana and Zambia. The paper compares key gender issues that arise across three different models of agricultural commercialisation: plantation, contract farming and small- and medium-scale commercial farming. It further discusses how concepts and research methods deriving from the literature on gender and agriculture may be applied to mainstream research. The paper highlights the need for an integrated approach to researching gender and agrarian change in Africa. In particular, the existing gender literature provides a rich legacy for researchers of all disciplines to inform their research design and analysis. The authors argue for a more systematic evaluation of the gender implications of agricultural commercialisation across interconnected social levels: household, local community and the wider political economy

Gender implications of agricultural commercialisation: the case of sugarcane production in Kilombero District, Tanzania

Since the global food crisis of 2008 the Tanzanian government, amongst other African governments, has made food security through increases in agricultural productivity a policy priority. The emphasis in Tanzania is on commercialisation, with a particular focus on large-scale rice and sugarcane production. Gender equity within African agricultural production is a critical issue; yet limited empirical research exists on the gender implications of agricultural commercialisation now taking place in the region. This paper presents findings from fieldwork conducted in Kilombero District of Tanzania in 2013 and 2014. The research takes the country’s largest sugar producer – Kilombero Sugar Company Ltd – as its focus and analyses the socio-economic implications of the commercialisation of sugarcane production from a gender perspective. The findings demonstrate the significance of gender relations in the development of commercial agricultural business models, local socio-economic development and land titling measures. They also illustrate the pressures and benefits for relationships and resource-sharing within households in the transition from food crops to sugarcane production

Lessons for the new alliance and land transparency initiative: gender impacts of Tanzania’s land investment policy

There are gender-differentiated impacts when land is harnessed for commercial investment. Land policy needs to address the gendered nature of power relations within families and land tenure systems, and the implications of rural social relations on processes of community consultation, land management and dispute settlement. Without this, land investment policies will not reach their goals of tenure security for all, agricultural productivity and increased revenue. From the outset the full participation of women as well as men, good local leadership and gender-sensitive business practices at the local level are needed, to ensure that the fruits of land-based investment deals in the countryside are gender-equitable

[Review] Badri, Balghis and Tripp, Aili Mari (editors) (2017) Women's activism in Africa

Debates on women’s rights and gender equality in Africa often centre on how international norms are interpreted at a local level. This book, which is written and edited by African women activists, presents an alternative vision. Aiming to ‘challenge the stereotype that African women are passive, underprivileged and simply under the domination of patriarchy’ (p.22), this edited collection shows not only how African women’s movements have contributed to shaping and defining global approaches to women’s advancement, but also how they have brought about positive changes in national constitutional and legal reforms, women’s political representation, business leadership, peace-making and peace-building

Journeys for justice in Tanzania

Much has been written about women’s land rights in Africa, but little research has been undertaken on how law works in practice, particularly in statutory court systems. Before I began the research for my book, Women, Land and Justice in Tanzania, I was a practising legal aid barrister in England. My ‘black-letter’ legal training had encouraged me to see law as a tool and my approach to human rights had much in common with the ‘rights-based approaches’ of many lawyers, international organisations and NGOs. In the early stages of planning my research however, I reflected on the limitations and pitfalls of pursuing a rights-based approach to research. Postcolonial and feminist legal scholars point to what Ratna Kapur has described as ‘victimisation rhetoric’ surrounding many human rights campaigns for women’s rights. Moreover, rights-based approaches take the concept of human rights and human rights law, rather than the lived experiences of people, as the analytical starting-point. The presence of human rights provisions in laws and constitutions represents a vital political and legal commitment. However, arguably, the rights-based approach is too narrow a conceptual lens through which to ground an understanding of the issues surrounding women, land and access to justice in practice. I decided to turn my research methodology on its head, making people and women’s claims to land, rather than legal and human rights principles, the starting point and touchstone, both during my fieldwork and in the writing and recommendations

Wild law and activism conference held at Sussex

The University of Sussex hosted the UK Environmental Law Association Wild Law conference on 9 November 2019. The event was co-sponsored by Sussex Sustainability Research Programme and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The conference theme of Wild Law and Activism brought together legal practitioners, activists, NGO professionals, academics, students and the general public to explore the connections between ecocentric perspectives on law and the wave of environmental activism globally. It asked what can activists, wild lawyers and the wider public learn from each other in developing our thinking and actions in ways that better support the planet

Defending our forests

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