Law, Colonialism, and Inheritance Symposium, 05/'96

Law, Colonialism, and Inheritance in Africa

4th Annual Joint Stanford-Berkeley Center for African Studies with UCLA and the Stanford Humanities Center

10 May 1996
Symposium

Stanford Humanities Center Annex

European colonialism in Africa was an encounter between dynamic local processes of change and world-wide patterns of political, cultural, economic, and social control. Colonialism in Africa involved efforts to remake African societies in accordance with prevailing European cultural paradigms and to have Africans fulfill metropolitan needs. Colonialism was also about Africans' responses to European efforts to tinker with their societies, their economies, and their polities. Some Africans embraced the opportunities provided by colonialism; some resisted them; and most probably ignored them as long as they could until they were drawn inexorably into economies and communities shaped by wider colonial and international economies.

Sooner or later, colonialism impacted political and moral authority, kinship, and access to resources in Africa. Conflicts about inheritance were never merely about goods, offices, or economic resources. They were about social and political relationships. Some of these conflicts made their way to the colonial court systems established throughout Africa. Litigation over inheritance can be understood as a "trouble spot" in colonial legal systems, thereby revealing of deeper structures and wider changes.

Cases about inheritance provide potentially exciting historical evidence to probe changing social and economic relationships. Cases surrounding inheritance, which made their way to colonial court systems, were often about efforts by Africans to control resources, obligations, and people. By linking law, colonialism, and inheritance, the organizers of this symposium are interested in exploring the range of ways the study of law in colonial Africa regarding inheritance can provide new insights into change in colonial Africa and the meanings of those changes. Papers on topics linking law, colonialism, and inheritance in Africa are welcome.

For more information, please contact Richard Roberts, African Studies Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5013 (e-mail: RROBERTS@Leland.Stanford.edu.

Abstracts should be received by 15 March 1995. If accepted, papers must be received by 25 April in order to be circulated in advance. Local expenses will be covered and a few stipends to defray travel are available.

------------------
Message-Id: 01HZRK4QJW2A00A055@HOOVER.STANFORD.EDU Date: Mon, 08 Jan 1996 10:57:15 -0800 (PST) From: Karen Fung fung@HOOVER.STANFORD.EDU Subject: Law, Colonialism, and Inheritance Symposium