Chiefs in South Africa

Law, Power and Culture in the Post-Apartheid Era

Häftad, Engelska, 2005

449 kr

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Examines the role of customary law and 'traditional' authority in contemporary South Africa.There is a surprising resurgence of traditional authority, custom and culture in post-apartheid South Africa, as part of a conscious African renaissance. Yet customary law studies highlight the artificial origins of these 'traditional' institutions. This book poses three questions: what is the relation between the changing legal and socio-political position of traditional authority and customary law in the new South Africa? Why are they changing in this way? and, what does this teach us about the interrelation between laws, politics and culture in the post-modern world?BARBARA OOMEN is Assistant Professor of Law & Development in the University of AmsterdamNorth America: Palgrave; South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2005-08-09
Mått150 x 228 x undefined mm
Vikt444 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor288
FörlagJames Currey
ISBN9780852558805

Tillhör följande kategorier

Introduction: reawakenings - The patchwork democracy: boundary politics after 1994 - The power of definition: struggling for the soul of custom - Sekhukhune: the institutional landscape - 'Walking in the middle of the road': people's perspectives on the legitimacy of traditional leadership - Negotiated laws, relational rights... power, authority, and the creation of local law - Conclusion: categories have consequences, the constitutive effects of cultural rights legislation - Select Bibliography.

There is no doubt that it is a book of major importance which will be widely influential and cited. Using the apparently paradoxical case of the new importance and influence of African traditional authorities in South Africa, she presents an argument for this being a local example of global trends towards localisation, authenticity, culture, pluralism, etc. At the same time she demonstrates clearly that it is more than merely an imposition of fashionable ideas on local realities. Making use of her re-iterated question of who chooses what is customary and authentic, she shows the involvement not only of chiefs themselves, and of government anthropologists, and of ANC politicians, but also of many different interests locally. - , Emeritus Rhodes Professor of Race Relations, University of Oxford