This course examines the quest for justice in Africa from three perspectives: concepts of justice and rights, institutions of law, and the experience of injustice. We shall consider issues pertaining to the historical quest for redress against injustice done to Africans by outsiders such as slavers, colonists, settlers, and their beneficiaries. We shall also examine the quests for justice when Africans perpetrate large-scale violence on each other. Thirdly, we shall focus on questions of how ordinary people in Africa seek justice in their everyday lives in the context of legal systems, often inadequate and incompetent, deriving from the colonial era and where courts of chiefs and “traditional” leaders co-exist with formal legal institutions and informal judicial forums as well as ad hoc mob justice. Central to our deliberations here will be questions of how notions of universal human rights clash with local concerns about the status and rights of women, occult violence such as “witchcraft,” sexual morality (specifically, homosexuality), and the causes of diseases such as AIDS.
Course Requirements:
The objective of the course is to produce a 20-page research paper of publishable quality on a topic of the student’s choosing. A series of research exercises will be assigned to assist in producing this paper.
Intended Audience:
No data submitted
Class Format:
No data submitted