Collection
Law, Gender, and Islam in Africa
Guest Editors
Dr. Fulera Issaka-Toure, University of Ghana, Legon
Dr. Fatima Essop, Harvard Law, USA & Lawyer in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Dr. Erin E. Stiles, University of Nevada, Reno
Description
This special issue considers the relationships between law, gender, and Islam in various 21st century African contexts. We request proposals for papers that consider contemporary legal and law-related understandings, interpretation, and/or practice vis-à-vis Islam and gender in African Muslim majority or minority communities. The special issue welcomes papers on legal practice in all regions of the continent and in all contexts—projects could focus on contexts in which aspects of shari‘a/Islamic law are incorporated into state legal systems or contexts in which Islamic law is not formally recognized by the state or is considered a form of “customary” law. We welcome research on urban, semi-urban, or rural contexts, and projects that consider lay perspectives and experiences or those of legal or religious professionals (or both). Papers should take a social scientific or socio-legal perspective, and we are particularly interested in research that incorporates ethnographic methods. We are particularly interested in research that considers gendered aspects of legal understanding, interpretation, and practice in the realm of personal status law (marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody), though we will consider submissions on all related topics.
We accept submissions of full papers with a Deadline of November 30th 2023. Papers should be written in English and include a short abstract and four to six keywords. Submissions must be suitable for double-blind peer-review. Papers submitted to the special issue will follow the same double-blinded peer review editorial procedures as set for any regular papers submitted to this journal. Every paper should be submitted online through Editorial Manager® by following Contemporary Islam’s Instructions for Authors.
We encourage you to follow Contemporary Islam’s editorial procedures, as stated in our Peer Review Policy, Process and Guidance and read the detailed information about how reviewers are selected as described in the Peer Reviewer Selectionpolicy.
Important: when submitting the paper online, be sure that the option “SI: Law, Gender, and Islam in Africa” is selected from the Article Type menu.
We expect to print the whole special issue in 2024. However, papers accepted for publication after the reviewing process will be published in the journal's webpage online first and in its own collection page.
This Special issue/Collection will bring higher citations and visibility to your paper rather than regular papers and attract more relevant readership due to its scope. The journal is indexed in the Web of Science and currently has an IF of 1.100 and CiteScore of 2.1.
Please send any questions to Guest Editor, Erin E. Stiles
Editors
-
Dr. Fatima Essop
Dr. Fatima Essop is a scholar of Islamic law and sociolegal studies and has undertaken empirical research in the areas of Islamic divorce and inheritance in order to identify the disparities between the theory of law and the lived reality of the law, as experienced by the Muslim minority community in South Africa. Her research interests includes constitutional law, gender, religious law and legal pluralism. She is a Fellow of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World at Harvard Law and has practiced as a legal practitioner and family law mediator in South Africa.
-
Dr. Fulera Issaka-Toure, fissaka-toure@ug.edu.gh
Dr. Fulera Issaka-Toure is a Senior Lecturer in the Department for the Study of Religions, University of Ghana, Legon; and also, a Research Assistant in the Department of Islamic Studies in Germany. She has previously carried out field research in Ghana on Muslim family law in the context of the postcolonial state. Presently, she is working on Islamic practices, transnationalism, and gender among West African Muslims in Germany.
-
Dr. Erin E. Stiles, sdupont-pensa@ses.gtu.edu
Dr. Erin E. Stiles, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Research focuses on the intersections of Islam, law, and gender and she conducts fieldwork Zanzibar, Tanzania, where she has studied on the way lay people and legal professionals understand, interpret and use Islamic legal ideas in marital disputes. Her publications include An Islamic Court in Context: An Ethnographic Study of Judicial Reasoning (2009), Islamic Divorce in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective (2022, co-edited with Ayang Utriza Yakin), and Gendered Lives in the Western Indian Ocean: Islam, Marriage, and Sexuality on the Swahili Coast...
