Pursuing Justice in Africa: Competing Imaginaries and Contested Practices

by Jessica Johnson (Editor), George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780821424490
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	03/12/2021
Series:	Cambridge Centre of African Studies
Pages:	342
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jessica Johnson is a lecturer in the Department of African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her work focuses on gender and justice in a matrilineal area of Malawi.

George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane is a lecturer in the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His work focuses on the interaction of law and politics in Zimbabwean history, as well as the social and political impacts of digital media.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction Re-centering Justice in African Studies Jessica Johnson George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane 1

Part I Morality, Religion, and Languages of Justice

1 Competing Conceptions of Justice in Colonial Buganda Jonathon L. Earle 33

2 Legal Pluralism and the Pursuit of a Just Life Muslim Views on Law and Justice in East Africa Felicitas Becker 51

3 Social Justice and Moral Space in Hospital Cancer Care in Kenya Benson A. Mulemi 72

4 Relational Justice and Transformation in Postapartheid South Africa Duncan Scott 92

Part II Gender Justice

5 Chilungamo and the Question of LGBTQ+ Rights in Malawi Alan Msosa 115

6 Justice Intervention Mobile Courts in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Patrick Hoenig 139

7 Conflicting Conceptions of Justice and the Legal Treatment of Defilement Cases in Malawi Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo Bernadette Malunga 159

8 "Home People" and "People of Human Rights" Understanding Responses to Rape in Northern Uganda Holly Porter 179

Part III Resources, Conflict, and Justice

9 Out of the Mouths of Babes Tracing Child Soldiers' Notions of "Justice," ca. 1940-2012 Stacey Hynd 201

10 Good and Bad Muslims Conflict, Justice, and Religion among Somalis at Dagahaley Refugee Camp in Kenya Fred Nyongesa Ikanda 222

11 Land Restitution (Old and New), Neotraditionalism, and the Contested Values of Land Justice in South Africa Olaf Zenker 243

12 Transitional Justice and Ordinary Justice in Postconflict Acholiland Anna MacDonald 264

Afterword Kamari Maxine Clarke 289

Bibliography 293

Contributors 325

Index 329

Editorial Reviews

The diverse essays, many by African scholars, make this an essential collection on a topic just beginning to animate African studies. Outstanding in their well-balanced combination of ethnography and theory, they thoroughly contextualize their topic. The contrast between the local and the international alone that this well-thought-out book illuminates is valuable.”—Pnina Werbner, author of The Making of an African Working Class: Politics, Law, and Cultural Protest in the Manual Workers' Union of Botswana


“This important volume asks us to step back and reconsider current processes for seeking justice—for righting wrongs, holding criminals accountable for their crimes, and fostering harmony—and to ask what should always have been the first question: what are the meanings individuals and communities attach to ‘justice’? Or, indeed, is there anything like ‘justice’ in Africa that can equate to the many, differing definitions of justice in the West?”—Brett Shadle, author of The Souls of White Folk: White Settlers in Kenya, 1900—1920s


“This is an impactful, powerful, well-written book for scholars who are deconstructing the concept of justice within an African context. This book adds an emboldened voice to the current literature and affirms the position that more needs to be done to address the inequalities within vulnerable groups such as women and children in Africa.”—Rashri Baboolal-Frank, African Studies Review

From the Publisher