The state and the paradox of customary law in Africa

Resource Information

The work The state and the paradox of customary law in Africa represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Biddle Law Library - University of Pennsylvania Law School. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The state and the paradox of customary law in Africa

Statement of responsibility

edited by Olaf Zenker and Markus Virgil Hoehne

Contributor

• Zenker, Olaf
• Zenker, Olaf
• Höhne, Markus Virgil
• Höhne, Markus Virgil

Editor

• Höhne, Markus Virgil
• Höhne, Markus Virgil
• Zenker, Olaf
• Zenker, Olaf

Subject

• Africa, Sub-Saharan
• Customary law
• Customary law -- Africa, Sub-Saharan

Language

eng

Summary

This volume analyses how the interactions between state and non-state normative orders have shaped the everyday practices of the state. It argues that, in their daily work, local officials are confronted with a paradox of customary law: operating under politico-legal pluralism and limited state capacity, bureaucrats must often, paradoxically, deal with custom - even though the form and logic of customary rule is not easily compatible and frequently incommensurable with the form and logic of the state - in order to do their work as a state. Given the self-contradictory nature of this endeavour, officials end up processing, rather than solving, this paradox in multiple, inconsistent and piecemeal ways. Assembling inventive case studies on state-driven land reforms in South Africa and Tanzania, the police in Mozambique, witchcraft in southern Sudan, constitutional reform in South Sudan, Guinea's long durée of changing state engagements with custom, and hybrid political orders in Somaliland, this volume offers important insights into the divergent strategies used by African officials in handling this paradox of customary law and, somehow, getting their work done

Member of

• Cultural diversity and law

Cataloging source

DLC

Illustrations

maps

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Cultural diversity and law