Pursuing Justice in Africa: Competing Imaginaries and Contested Practices

Pursuing Justice in Africa focuses on the many actors pursuing many visions of justice across the African continent—their aspirations, divergent practices, and articulations of international and vernacular idioms of justice. The essays selected by editors Jessica Johnson and George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane engage with topics at the cutting edge of contemporary scholarship across a wide range of disciplines. These include activism, land tenure, international legal institutions, and postconflict reconciliation. Building on recent work in sociolegal studies that foregrounds justice over and above concepts such as human rights and legal pluralism, the contributors grapple with alternative approaches to the concept of justice and its relationships with law, morality, and rights. While the chapters are grounded in local experiences, they also attend to the ways in which national and international actors and processes influence, for better or worse, local experiences and understandings of justice. The result is a timely and original addition to scholarship on a topic of major scholarly and pragmatic interest. Contributors: Felicitas Becker, Jonathon L. Earle, Patrick Hoenig, Stacey Hynd, Fred Nyongesa Ikanda, Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Anna Macdonald, Bernadette Malunga, Alan Msosa, Benson A. Mulemi, Holly Porter, Duncan Scott, Olaf Zenker.https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/1010/thumbnail.jp

Legal encounters : law, state and society in Zimbabwe, c.1950-1990

This study examines the role of law in the constitution and contestation of state power in African history. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, it analyses legal struggles between Africans and the state, and amongst Africans themselves between 1950 and 1990. In doing so it intervenes in a number of scholarly debates on the relationship between law, state power and agency in African history. Firstly, I examine the role of law in constituting state power by exploring the interplay between legitimation and coercion in long term perspective. Secondly, I interrogate legal centralism as an approach to understanding developments in the legal sphere in African history and make the case for legal pluralism as a more appropriate approach. I argue that during the period under study, Zimbabwe witnessed a process I of evolving legal pluralism characterised by the mutual appropriation of forms, symbols and concepts between state law and the 'customary law'. Thirdly, I contribute to the debate Ion , African legal agency by demonstrating that its significance went beyond the utility of the raw in specific social, economic and political struggles. I argue that it also gave expression to emergent political imaginaries, shifting ideas of personhood and alternative visions of the social and political order. Lastly, r argue that, by undertaking a historical examination of legal struggles, this study provides a useful foundation from which to analyse contemporary legal struggles in Zimbabwe and in Africa more generally. The findings presented Here caution against being drawn in by the apparent novelty of contemporary legal struggles. In addition, they suggest the means by which human rights discourse in Africa might be reinvigorated.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Legal encounters: law, state and society in Zimbabwe, c1950-1990

This study examines the role of law in the constitution and contestation of state power in African history. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, it analyses legal struggles between Africans and the state, and amongst Africans themselves between 1950 and 1990. In doing so it intervenes in a number of scholarly debates on the relationship between law, state power and agency in African history. Firstly, I examine the role of law in constituting state power by exploring the interplay between legitimation and coercion in long term perspective. Secondly, I interrogate legal centralism as an approach to understanding developments in the legal sphere in African history and make the case for legal pluralism as a more appropriate approach. I argue that during the period under study, Zimbabwe witnessed a process of evolving legal pluralism characterised by the mutual appropriation of forms, symbols and concepts between state law and the ‘customary law’. Thirdly, I contribute to the debate on African legal agency by demonstrating that its significance went beyond the utility of the law in specific social, economic and political struggles. I argue that it also gave expression to emergent political imaginaries, shifting ideas of personhood and alternative visions of the social and political order. Lastly, I argue that, by undertaking a historical examination of legal struggles, this study provides a useful foundation from which to analyse contemporary legal struggles in Zimbabwe and in Africa more generally. The findings presented here caution against being drawn in by the apparent novelty of contemporary legal struggles. In addition, they suggest the means by which human rights discourse in Africa might be reinvigorated.</p

Legal encounters: law, state and society in Zimbabwe, c1950-1990

This study examines the role of law in the constitution and contestation of state power in African history. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, it analyses legal struggles between Africans and the state, and amongst Africans themselves between 1950 and 1990. In doing so it intervenes in a number of scholarly debates on the relationship between law, state power and agency in African history. Firstly, I examine the role of law in constituting state power by exploring the interplay between legitimation and coercion in long term perspective. Secondly, I interrogate legal centralism as an approach to understanding developments in the legal sphere in African history and make the case for legal pluralism as a more appropriate approach. I argue that during the period under study, Zimbabwe witnessed a process of evolving legal pluralism characterised by the mutual appropriation of forms, symbols and concepts between state law and the ‘customary law’. Thirdly, I contribute to the debate on African legal agency by demonstrating that its significance went beyond the utility of the law in specific social, economic and political struggles. I argue that it also gave expression to emergent political imaginaries, shifting ideas of personhood and alternative visions of the social and political order. Lastly, I argue that, by undertaking a historical examination of legal struggles, this study provides a useful foundation from which to analyse contemporary legal struggles in Zimbabwe and in Africa more generally. The findings presented here caution against being drawn in by the apparent novelty of contemporary legal struggles. In addition, they suggest the means by which human rights discourse in Africa might be reinvigorated.This thesis is not currently available in ORA