Legal Anthropology Flashcards
Sally Falk Moore on Kilomanjaro
Chiefs previouS role to announce decision of age-grade assembly now presided over and made decisions
Cash economy made it possible to escape kin obligations - liberated woman and junior man
Mahmood(1966)
- colonialism to bring civilisation and latter meant rule by law
- creation of customary law- but who defined - african ancestor illiterate - white officials, state , chiefs
- previously autonomous spheres e.g household now under power of chief backed up by ‘law’ - consolidated their power !!!
- triple chanGes - process of state formation, markets , changes in gender and gender relations
- e.g separate slides
Martin Cjanock on law in Zambia and Malawi
‘Economic individualising and jural individuation went hand in hand’
E.g Langi of Northern Uganda - new courts resolved whether cattle bought by earned money belonged to matrilineage or individual often in favor of latter.
Ghandour
Ottoman legislation ambiguous british could easily bend it towards their advantage in project of - ‘simplification’
-the coloniser as ‘savour’ of securing rights through compulsory registration of land
a) prioritisation to label as much of ambiguous categories as public , state property-e.g miri previously vested in state, but also cultivated by all
b) ‘communaly held’ land from musha system ( rotation) partitioned
c) too large settlement divided, too small to be transferred to neighbour
= land registration key to colonial project - taxes !!!!
Fitzpatricks concept of ‘integral plurality’
State law integrally constituted in relation to a plurality of social forms
- e.g science is incorporated into elements of law, family and its order are shaped by law but also vice versa
- E.g Fanella cannel on reproductive technology law
sally falk Moore ( 1973) - semi autonomous social fields
- norms circulate as semi-generative sub-systems
- dynamics between their external and internal obligations
E.g New York fashion industry. Jobbers (designing)and contractors (creating it from materials) have a formal contract with Union determining min wages, working hours etc - yet due to the supply and demand dynamics of the market those rules frequently need to be broken. E.g they might need to work more then allowed at a period of high demand otherwise there would be no profit, since at another time there might be no demand at all
malinowski social norms
- following functionalist doctrine claims a complex web of reciprocal obligations to ultimately ensure satisfaction of individual needs and thus preserve order - deems equivalent of english civil law
- basic bio needs later secondary derived social need such as ambition to be wealthy
- e.g every member of canoe crew bound to its construction, will obey master to be called for expedition but in turn will receive his share and ceremonial payments
- sometimes social norms clashed with other sentiments - e.g greater recognition of nephew rather than son in legal rights, father often bends the rules with privileges and valuables
- proves impossibility of legal system free of kinship and friendship ties- link to Bolivian lynching
- yet deems ‘primitive law’ different from custom and morality norms - legal pluralists took the step further !!! We must consider their role too!!
Griffiths legal pluralism definition
Presence of more than one legal order in the social field
Comaroff and Roberts ( 1981) - Tswana body of norms
- mekgwa le melao - at formal level melao refers to laws of chiefly legislation while mekgwa are traditional usages , customs not enacted by chief
- in practice however no division, dispute settlement agencies operate as if it did not have any pragmatic significance
- by analysing disputes show how litigants can manoeuvre to achieve desired needs
- moreover megkwa le malao is said to catch up with the social changes with a bit of lapse in time, proving law based on previous social obligations - show how not so different from a western court ! - zelizer
Notes on legal pluralism
- debate about its usefulness:
Freeman - ends in immobilisation
Roberts - we are losing track of what the law is - we need to take seriously what roberts is saying , careful not to fall into disciplinary solipsism
- the law - set of rules to which one can explicitly refer to - follow popsisils attributes : sanction, intention of universal application, obligatio
- we need to scrutinize how more normative orders and personal situations firstly inform and complement, and later negotiate with during dispute resolution the more abstract orders based on legalist philosophy.
Viviana Zelizer (2000)
- social rules and moral judgements prominent in the courtroom
- american law treatment of disputes involving coinciding monetary transactions and sexual exchanges
- officially in the states prostitution is banned and money and sex are incommensurable, yet from her examples comes out that courts do set a price on sex and it depends on personal relations between litigants ( popsisil’s obligatio)
- 1898 tort case mr.jones sued dallas city for loss of wifes sexual services because of injury after she fell into a hole in the street
- court granted him 5,000 !! Sexual duty not mentioned in civil law about marriage ! - yet zelizer notes that if mr.jones was her pimp or even lover the outcome would be completely different
Harry Kidd (1969) - conflicts between students and uni at LSE
- Kidd understands school regulations as distinct and authoritative over social obligations but what he describes proves contrary
- students opposed appointment of new director sir Walter adams.
- Take example when meeting to stop adams in old theatre banned by the then director Sydney Caine.
- a body of students shouting about the rights they have to the old theatre and caine responding they ‘have no rights to it’ - a visible discrepancy in understanding the law // protection of rights of formal decision and use of uni owned building vs ‘ attack on free speech’
- good to pass onto human rights law - lex mercatoria - international orders - the school as a semi- autonomous field
