Social Facts And Fabrications

In this book, Sally Falk Moore examines a hundred years in the history of an African people, the Chagga of Kilimanjaro, in order to understand how their present system of 'customary' laws came to be the way it is, and how the idea of custom was used in Tanzania's experiment with African socialism. She discusses the changes that have occurred in the formal legal system, alongside the vast economic and political transformations that came with cash cropping and colonial rule. She also presents a 'legal' chronicle of the members of one lineage to illustrate its use of the formal legal system. This study of the difference between law in the life of a people and law in the local courts will interest teachers and students of legal anthropology and law and also provides an important contribution to anthropological theory. In addition it has practical relevance for the understanding of the operation of 'traditional' institutions and will appeal to readers interested in African history and African studies.

Cooperative rule -- Pedagogies of community development -- Anti-empire, development, and emergency rule -- Uganda's anticolonial cooperative movement -- Cooperatives and decolonization in postwar Britain.

Building on earlier work in the anthropology of law and taking a critical stance toward it, June Starr and Jane F. Collier ask, "Should social anthropologists continue to isolate the ‘legal’ as a separate field of study?" To answer this question, they confront critics of legal anthropology who suggest that the subfield is dying and advocate a reintegration of legal anthropology into a renewed general anthropology. Chapters by anthropologists, sociologists, and law professors, using anthropological rather than legal methodologies, provide original analyses of particular legal developments. Some contributors adopt an interpretative approach, focusing on law as a system of meaning; others adopt a materialistic approach, analyzing the economic and political forces that historically shaped relations between social groups. Contributors include Said Armir Arjomand, Anton Blok, Bernard Cohn, George Collier, Carol Greenhouse, Sally Falk Moore, Laura Nader, June Nash, Lawrence Rosen, June Starr, and Joan Vincent.

Rule and Rupture - State Formation Through the Production of Property and Citizenship examines the ways in which political authority is defined and created by the rights of community membership and access to resources. Combines the latest theory on property rights and citizenship with extensive fieldwork to provide a more complex, nuanced assessment of political states commonly viewed as “weak,” “fragile,” and “failed” Contains ten case studies taken from post-colonial settings around the world, including Cambodia, Nepal, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, and Bolivia Characterizes the results of societal ruptures into three types of outcomes for political power: reconstituted and consolidated, challenged, and fragmented Brings together exciting insights from a global group of scholars in the fields of political science, development studies, and geography

An essential collection of scholarly essays on the anthropology of Africa, offering a thorough introduction to the most important topics in this evolving and diverse field of study The study of the cultures of Africa has been central to the methodological and theoretical development of anthropology as a discipline since the late 19th-century. As the anthropology of Africa has emerged as a distinct field of study, anthropologists working in this tradition have strived to build a disciplinary conversation that recognizes the diversity and complexity of modern and ancient African cultures while acknowledging the effects of historical anthropology on the present and future of the field of study. A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa is a collection of insightful essays covering the key questions and subjects in the contemporary anthropology of Africa with a key focus on addressing the topics that define the contemporary discipline. Written and edited by a team of leading cultural anthropologists, it is an ideal introduction to the most important topics in the field, both those that have consistently been a part of the critical dialogue and those that have emerged as the central questions of the discipline’s future. Beginning with essays on the enduring topics in the study of African cultures, A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa provides a foundation in the contemporary critical approach to subjects of longstanding interest. With these subjects as a groundwork, later essays address decolonization, the postcolonial experience, and questions of modern identity and definition, providing representation of the diverse thinking and scholarship in the modern anthropology of Africa.

Thirteen distinguished anthropologists describe how they create and use the unique forms of writing they produce in the field. They also discuss the fieldnotes of seminal figures—Frank Cushing, Franz Boas, W. H. R. Rivers, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Margaret Mead—and analyze field writings in relation to other types of texts, especially ethnographies. Unique in conception, this volume contributes importantly to current debates on writing, texts, and reflexivity in anthropology.

Ethnographies of law are historically associated with anthropology and the study of far-away places and people. In contrast, this volume underscores the importance of ethnographic research in analyzing law in all societies, particularly complex developed nations. By exploring recent ethnographic research by socio-legal scholars across a range of disciplines, the volume highlights how an ethnographic approach helps in appreciating the realities of legal pluralism, the subtle contradictions in any legal system and how legal meaning is constantly reproduced on the ground through the cultural frames and practices of peoples' everyday lives.

'International law' is no longer a sufficient rubric to describe the complexities of law in an era of globalization. Accordingly, this collection situates cross-border norm development at the intersection of interdisciplinary scholarship on comparative law, conflict of laws, civil procedure, cyberlaw, legal pluralism and the cultural analysis of law, as well as traditional international law. It provides a broad range of seminal articles on transnational law-making, governmental and non-governmental networks, judicial influence and cooperation across borders, the dialectical relationships among national, international and non-state legal norms, and the possibilities of 'bottom-up' and plural law-making processes. The introduction situates these articles within the framework of law and globalization and suggests four important ways in which such a framework enlarges the traditional focus of international law. This book, therefore, provides a crucial reference for scholars and practitioners seeking to understand the varied processes of norm development in the emerging global legal order.