Abstract
Justice on the ground is often critiqued for being male-dominated and ‘patriarchal’. This is an assumption that we want to unpack and problematise in this chapter, and through the case studies in this volume. Engaging with such assumptions is of particular interest for this volume, since our case studies reveal the complex and organic ways in which women have power and influence in relation to justice on the ground which may not be immediately obvious. This is not to say that justice on the ground isn’t as patriarchal or oppressive to women as any other system or institution in the world. But simply labelling justice on the ground as being one thing or another, misses the dynamic movement of these practices and misses the many ways in which women do exert agency and have voice. An engagement with African feminisms is helpful in providing us with a number of lenses, or simply questions, through which to read the cases discussed in this volume.
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Notes
- 1.
This is not to say that in today’s world, women and men on the continent have equal access to the labour market, protected work environments (women in southern Africa are more likely to work in precarious forms of employment) or receive equal pay. It is rather to point to the different trajectories and concerns of women in different geographical locations at different times in history.
- 2.
Of course, this was also the case in ‘the west’, where, historically, Christianity has shaped the political systems of governance and justice that are dominant today.
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Wielenga, C. (2022). African Feminisms and Justice on the Ground. In: Wielenga, C. (eds) African Feminisms and Women in the Context of Justice in Southern Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82128-9_2
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