Cross Cultural Conversation IX (JVI Seminar)

Wednesday 25 September 2024 12:30 - 14:00

Location: The Moot Courtroom, 232, Riverside Building

students in the moot courtroom

Join us online or in person for our 9th Cross Cultural Conversation event, which engages scholars, legal practitioners, and policy makers.

An African perspective on family property and customary law

Our Cross-Cultural Conversation is anchored by the Forum for the Study of Jurisprudence and Value Inquiry (JVI), Supported by the University’s Equality and Diversity Forum, the hybrid event takes place at the Moot Courtroom at RGU. The JVI Forum has active participants from universities within and outside the United Kingdom. Our approach to the Conversations is both interdisciplinary and cross cultural. For now, the focus is on the Non-Western World: we seek to gain insight into worldviews and values that shape scholarship and engagement with local laws and legal education.  

A series of Cross-Cultural Conversation events, which engages scholars, legal practitioners, and policy makers, is accordingly being planned. Guest authors have opportunities to discuss their own works and, by extension, to show case their own worldviews and cultures. You will have plenty of time to engage the speaker and the reviewer. 

Abstract

In what ways do transformations in indigenous social structures affect the evolution of family laws in Africa?

Prior to European colonisation, African communities were predominantly agrarian, largely devoid of independent income, and strongly influenced by ancestral worship. Group notions of rights and obligations aimed at the welfare of the extended family. Importantly, proprietary rights were shaped by people’s leadership, religious and familial roles. The social and economic changes introduced by European colonialism radically changed this agrarian setting. Driven by capitalism, migrant labour, commercial agriculture and independent income, property relations became commodified, with intersectional effects on normativity. Informed by empirical insight and literature review, this chapter analyses these transformations in conditions of legal pluralism. It argues that socioeconomic changes from globalisation contribute to conflict between indigenous and state property laws, which often prejudice women, girls, and younger males. It highlights how transformations in indigenous family structures demand law reforms in Africa.

The article for review can be fully accessed in Chapter 8 of the Research Handbook on Family Property and the Law: Research Handbooks in Family Law series, Edited by Margaret Briggs and Andy Hayward.

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