Lecture 5

Question 1

who is most associated with The Ethnography of

Judicial Process

Answer 1

Gluckman v. Bohannan

Question 2

where Gluckman and Bohannan at odds

Answer 2

these two scholars were at odds

achedemic, intellectual and personal rivalry

Question 3

what is the overview of the difference between Gluckman and Bohannan

Answer 3

they look at situations that there is a dispute wthat is aired in public, where there is a judge and a decisions and in terms of these diffeent ingredients, they take very different approaches

Question 4

what is commensurability

Answer 4

means making things translate into each-other
one guy was with the idea that you can do this; you can transfer language across societies and have a comparative thing (especially in relation to law and how it translates over the globe)

Question 5

what is incommensurability

Answer 5

said you cannot translate things

leave it in its own terms because it is DIFFERENT and needs to be left the way it is

Question 6

what is significant about the Manchester school

Answer 6

will talk about how it approached ethnography and colonial ethnography
talking about how it was engaged in a deeper analysis of a legal phenomenon/processes of overcoming legal phenomenons

Question 7

what is situational analysis

Answer 7

???

Question 8

who was Max Gluckman

Answer 8

founder and head of the manchester school

this was a school of anthropology

Question 9

what was Gluckman’s problem

Answer 9

Why do “particular people have certain ideas about law, government, enforcement, debt, contract and agreement, injury and wrong”[?] (Politics, Law and Ritual . . . 1965, 213)

he was legally trained and conderned with a distincly legal problem
why do people have certain idea about government and the enforcement of certain obligaions etc?
he thoigh you could go to any society and find certain phenomeno associated with certain disputes that were with the economy of that socieiety

Question 10

who influenced Bohannon

Answer 10

Marx

Question 11

what is primitive communism

Answer 11

“[W]here socio-economic conditions are similar, many postulates will be shared.” (213)

In tribal societies, “the struggle for power and prestige might be acute, but it was fought along lines of territorial and genealogical cleavages, and not between differently endowed economic groups” (82)

Question 12

who is associated with primitive communism

Answer 12

gluckman

Question 13

give an overview of primitive communism

Answer 13

Simple technology and limited economies.
This means that leadership is tied to status differentiation, but not significant differences in wealth or consumption.
Significant differences might follow from subsistence technologies, such as hunting, pastoralism or settled agriculture, but in all tribal societies, wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a few.
Under these circumstances it is impossible to use production in order to raise one’s standard of living. Accumulation is neither possible nor desirable.
Despite egalitarian standards of consumption in tribal societies, there were often important differences in social rank, associated with control over resources and claims on the labour and loyalty of others

Question 14

why is it i

Answer 14

it is impossible to raise status in society of hunting and gathering, as you need to immediately distribute the goods you have , oyou cannot hold all the gains for yourself you MUST share it

in agricultural societies it is differnt

Question 15

what are the Distinct features of Manchester School

Answer 15

1) Central interest in conflict : Influence of Durkheim: Society is a moral order that maintains its continuity despite conflict.
Law and ritual uphold social order through mediating processes that reestablish harmony.
2) Methodological emphasis on “case studies,” actual situations. “Manchester seminars” emphasis on field data.
Accounts of “case law.”

Question 16

who really looked at the manchester school

Answer 16

gluckman

Question 17

what does gluckman think the key to understanding legal systems is

Answer 17

to look at situations and how they are resolved

Question 18

what was the main way of the manchester school

Answer 18

using case law

Question 19

what are key terms associated with the manchester school

Answer 19

Multiplex relationships
Situational analysis
Situational selection
Greater attention to colonial situations

Question 20

what is Multiplex relationships

Answer 20

social relationships extend over multiple contexts (v. “single interest” relationships)

aka interest in not just people in the mountains vs people in the low lands (single interest)
they lok at the complexity of people in a wide range and how they connect

Question 21

wha is Situational analysis

Answer 21

aka “events-centred analysis”: “in similar situations similar processes operate, but each has its variants.” Attention to actual events with attention to social actors

basically, who spoke on behalf of the defendants? who judged? looked at each player int he resolution
had to understand how the actors were mitigating and involved and what they did in the resolution
there was a situational selection involved in how people navigated dispute settlement

Question 22

what is situational selection

Answer 22

actor chooses from a range of beliefs and/or practices—adjusting for context, self-interest. Can lead to contradictions, inconsistencies.

Question 23

what is Greater attention to colonial situations

Answer 23

influence of foreign rule (including anti-colonial activism).

depended on colonial context to gain access to the feild before,
this school paid atttention to the colonial presence and how it directly related to the problems, they didnt try to excus their actions or anything, they were objective and reported on how coonialism impacted what the jjudges could and could not do
he is concerned in including the colonial influence on the legal process and how it impacts/hinders/benefits them

Question 24

what are the Key concepts in the Gluckman/Bohannan debate

Answer 24

commensurability/incommensurability
epic/emic
comparison/”folk systems”

In both: case study approach

Question 25

what did Gluckman believe

Answer 25

glukman— there is a findamental sense inwhoch the key concepts and categories of dispute settlement processes in the chief ship he was looking at in SA correspond in how we understand legal processes— he describes them as legal processes (basically put things in our terms so we could undertand exactly)

(commensurability)

Question 26

what did Bohannon believe

Answer 26

bohannah— he learned the language and this means that the concepts that he was using was incommensurable for us to understand with legal process (kept things in their words)

Question 27

what is emic

Answer 27

emic— involves understanding the process, the ethnographic details, according to the concepts that are used by the people living through it/being talked to (Bohannan did his work in this approach)

Question 28

what is etic

Answer 28

(bohannon) relating to or denoting an approach to the study or description of a particular language or culture that is general, nonstructural, and objective in its perspective

Question 29

who took a comparison approah

Answer 29

gluckman

Question 30

who too a “folk system” approach

Answer 30

bohanneon

Question 31

what did Gluckman say on commensurability

Answer 31

“If we specialize our terms, we clarify our problems” (202).
aka if we look at local concepts we could directly translate them into out terms

Eg:
“forensic institutions” rather than police. “champions-at-law” rather than lawyers.
“adjudication” rather than “law.”

Question 32

what is adjudication

Answer 32

is, “the process by which, in African tribes with courts, judges take and assess the evidence, examine what they regard as the facts, and come to a decision in favour of one party rather than another” (183

Question 33

what is an example of the situational analysis that gluckman did

Answer 33

Situational Analysis: Eg. opening ceremonies of a bridge in Zululand

Actions historically derived from European and Zulu cultures must be related to a system at least part of which consists of Zulu-European relations. Those relations can be studied as social norms, as is shown by the way in which Blacks and Whites, without constraint, adapt their behaviour to one another (11).
I have referred to the relations between Government officials, missionaries, traders, employers, technical experts, on the one hand, and Zulu on the other, and here indicate some of the problems that arise in considering the relationship between these Europeans (26).

Question 34

is bohannan interested in a comparison

Answer 34

absolutely not, just wants to look at things an evaluate the as they are

Question 35

what example did Bohannon give where there was a fundamental difference between western legal concepts and institutions and fold systems

Answer 35

Fundamental difference between Western legal concepts and
institutions and folk systems:
“There was an instance some time in the 1940’s when a man, who thought himself wrongly judged by the appeal court (Grade C) of Jecira lineage in Vande Ikya, rushed into the court circle and drank off a large calabash of sasswood, which he had prepared himself. He immediately vomited it, thereby proving his innocence to himself and his kinsmen and neighbours. The Assistant District Officer present sentenced him to six months for attempted suicide” (47)