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In search of gender justice : rights and relationships in matrilineal Malawi / Jessica Johnson, University of Birmingham.

EBSCOhost Academic eBook Collection (North America) Available online

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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Johnson, Jessica, 1984- author.
Series:
International African Library ; 58.
The International African Library ; 58
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Sex discrimination against women--Law and legislation--Malawi.
Sex discrimination against women.
Equality before the law--Malawi.
Equality before the law.
Matriarchy--Malawi.
Matriarchy.
Women's rights--Malawi.
Women's rights.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (xvi, 197 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Place of Publication:
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Summary:
What might gender justice look like in matrilineal Malawi? Ideas about gender and human rights have exerted considerable influence over African policy makers and civil society organisations in recent years, and Malawi is no exception. There, concerted efforts at civic education have made the concepts of human and women's rights widely accessible to the rural poor, albeit in modified form. In this book, Jessica Johnson listens to the voices of ordinary Malawian citizens as they strive to resolve disputes and achieve successful gender and marital relations. Through nuanced ethnographic description of aspirations for gender and marital relationships; extended analysis of dispute resolution processes; and an examination of the ways in which the approaches of chiefs, police officers and magistrates intersect, this study puts relationships between law, custom, rights, and justice under the spotlight.
Contents:
Cover
Half-title
Series information
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Maps
Tables
Acknowledgements
Glossary of Chichewa terms
Abbreviations and acronyms
Introduction
Southern Malawi: matriliny and gender relations
Food, hunger, and the politics of agriculture
Justice, morality, and love
Feminist anthropology?
Fieldwork setting and research methodology
Structure of the book
1 Love, marriage, and matriliny
Man trouble
Love
To marry or not to marry?
A matter of time
2 Marital disputes and the legal search for justice
Human and women's rights
A loose chain of dispute-resolution forums
Traditional authority
Community policing and victim support units
Magistrates' courts
The ambiguity of legal authority
3 Navigating ufulu
Disputing marriage
Negotiating rights and custom in the search for justice
A language of relationships
Conclusion: towards an anthropology of justice
4 Gender justice?
The jenda agenda
Misbehaving women or irresponsible men?
Achieving respectable adulthood
'These days there are no marriages'
Morality
Complementarity
Conclusion: from morality to justice
5 Handling violence
Assuming violence
Gender violence in the magistrates' courts
'But how are things in general?'
Establishing moral personhood: procedure, strategy, and claim-making
Procedure
Strategy
Claim-making
Extra-linguistic factors
Beyond violence: nkhanza as a failure of complementarity
Justice versus law
6 Justice in motion
'Stigma': moral category and legal challenge
Kutsala, to leave behind
Tentative hope in a matrilineal setting
Conclusion: the temporality of justice and hope
Conclusion
Matriliny matters
Towards an anthropology of gender justice
Bibliography.
Index.
Notes:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 29 Oct 2018).
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:
1-108-65430-4
1-108-56303-1
1-108-67873-4
OCLC:
1060605802

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