THE STUDY OF AFRICAN LAW AT THE AFRICAN STUDIES CENTRE, LEIDEN:

IN REACTION TO JOHN GRIFFITHS' OVERVIEW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF LAW IN THE NETHERLANDS IN THE 1970's

by Wim M.J. van Binsbergen

 

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THE STUDY OF AFRICAN LAW AT THE AFRICAN STUDIES CENTRE, LEIDEN: IN REACTION TO JOHN GRIFFITHS' OVERVIEW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF LAW IN THE NETHERLANDS IN THE 1970's

by Wim M.J. van Binsbergen

This article was originally published as: van Binsbergen, W.M.J., 1984b., ‘The study of African law at the African Studies Centre, Leiden: In reaction to John Griffiths’ overview of the anthropology of law in the Netherlands in the 1970’s’, Nieuwsbrief van Nederlandstalige Rechtssociologen, Rechtsantropologen, Rechtsantropologen, Rechtspsychologen (NRR) (Rotterdam), 5, 2: 199-207

 

Professor John Griffiths (an American occupying the chair of sociology of law at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands) has published, in a recent issue of NRR ('Newsletter for Dutch-language sociologists of law, anthropologist of law and psychologists of law') a critical overview of the anthropology of law in the Netherlands in the 1970s. This review exceeds 100 pages, and includes what Griffiths (1983: 224) claims to be 'a complete bibliography of Dutch legal anthropology in that period'.

      The production of such overviews has become rather fashionable in Dutch anthropology in recent years (cf. Kloos & Claessen 1975, 1981); and Dutch sociologists are now involved in a similar exercise, by means of a conference convened for spring, 1984. In the current climate of financial cutbacks and government-imposed restructuring of the organization of research, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, it is only understandable that one tries to create and exploit new intellectual and institutional boundaries, mobilizing potential friends and stressing if not inventing cleavages and feuds, for the sake of competition over funds, personnel establishment, institutional recognition, and academic esteem.

      Griffiths joined a Dutch law faculty in 1977 from abroad, and during the period covered by his review his personal contribution to legal anthropology and related fields has been on the level of legal theory and the philosophy of law, rather than empirical socio-legal studies (see his bibliography, Griffiths 1983: 229). Griffiths thus has the advantage of being an impartial outside observer, from a national and to some extent also from a disciplinary point of view. No doubt work on the review was for him a highly rewarding familiarization tour across the Dutch intellectual landscape and its history. The fact that he writes in English presumably makes his extensive summaries of publications and of colleagues's biographies rather useful to other outsiders.

At the same time, his outsidership may have been an impediment. One wonders whether the task of reviewing and, with the powers of hindsight, structuring and restructuring the national outlines of what he claims to be a subdiscipline, should not have been left to someone more solidly rooted in that field over a longer period of time, someone who could match his bibliographical, synthetic and theoretical skills (such as Griffiths obviously possesses) with personal experiences of the period described.

Admittedly Griffiths's picture of Dutch legal anthropology in the 1970s is on the whole extremely gratifying: the 1970s are claimed to have witnessed the rather unexpected rebirth of the subdiscipline, in the Netherlands, from the ashes of a honourable but unfortunately declined tradition featuring such great names as Ter Haar and Van Vollenhove. However, not so much the data but the author's treatment falls short of being totally convincing. The same few names and projects come back time and again in this excessively long and repetitive overview. Far too much attention is paid to insignificant, even unpublished, articles and lec­tures. Far too few colleagues are praised far too highly. Far too little is shown of a historical sense (as is best demonstrated by the very unfair, for anachronistic, treatment of Andre KSbben's seminal work -Griffiths 1983: 164-65). The author has hardly any understanding let alone appreciation of the institutional, intellectual and social preconceptions that underlie academic life in the Netherlands. Increasingly, one has the feeling of reading not a scholarly study but a political or even religious pamphlet, whose aim is not so much describing and analysing a recent past but evoking the illusion of an imminent golden age.

If this is what the editors and subscribers of NRR like to print respectively read, let them go ahead. In reality, of course, legal anthro­pology in the Netherlands scarcely exists as a distinct subdiscipline. It is amorphous, floating, historically heterogeneous, largely determined by conventions of Dutch academic subculture which Griffiths shows no signs of having internalized, and by and large it is so parochial that personal network contacts and personal rivalries determine it more than anything else. Griffiths covers himself nicely by claiming that his review is 'still a more or less provisional version' (1983: 132), and invites critical remarks. Now that his version has already been published, Grif­fiths regrettably has forced the hands of those wishing to comment on the more controversial parts of his paper: they have no option but engaging in published debate, thus risking to overstate points which would perhaps be better discussed in a more informal and relaxed way. Incidentally, the same would apply to some of Griffiths's own remarks, e.g. those concerning the 'scandalous1 ('in the technical sense of the word'; Griffiths 1983: 213) ignorance of Dutch anthropologists, who according to him fail to recognize legal anthropology as the cornerstone of their discipline; or the alleged absurdity of national procedures of research funds allocation. Such general attacks on Dutch conditions as Griffiths's review contain, are not not my concern here. However, he also levels a very specific and violent attack on research and research policy at the African Studies Centre, Leiden; and as head of one of this institution's two research departments, it is my duty to reply to his challenge.

      Griffiths's picture (1983: 156, 160-63, 168-70, 185-91, 221) of work at the African Studies Centre during the 1970s, and subsequent developments in the 1980s there, can be summarized as follows. As an aftermath of Holleman's leadership (whose formal link with the African Studies Centre was severed in 1969), the Centre is claimed to have been prominent in the study of African law right through the 1970s, successfully embarking on all sorts of activities (research, conferences, publications) in which over the years more than ten different researchers are said to have been involved. While going into excessive detail in some cases, Griffiths underexposes the work of some other African Studies Centre researchers in the 1970s. Thus on the basis of his review the uninformed reader would scarcely suspect that it was Harrell-Bond and Rijnsdorp who, during much of the period covered, carried the lion's share of legal research at our institution. Their Sierra Leone project was rather more successful than Griffiths suggests; its output includes for instance one major book overlooked by Griffiths (Harrell-Bond et al. 1978). Anyway, in 1983, one of the African Studies Centre researchers, E. van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal, saw his activities in the field of legal anthropology rewarded by a part-time chair in African constitutional law at Leiden University. But one swallow does not make summer. For Griffiths signals at the same time

'a well-advanced proposal to eliminate the Law section and "integrate" it in a Department of Political Development and History, headed by a (sic) anthropologist. When one considers the lack of interest in or knowledge of legal anthropology (or matters legal in general) which have been long typical of Dutch social science — a generalization to which the current leaderschip (58) of the African Studies Center is no exception — it seems safe to translate "integrate" out of bureaucratic jargon into "eliminate" in plain language. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that anthropology of law will fare better in the surrounding of such a Department than it does in any other social science department in the country. (...) what a shame such a (gradual) death will be' (Griffiths 1983: 160).

   Earlier it was scandal, and now shame; again, presumably, in the :hnical sense of the word? Fortunately, the truth is both more complex 1 more balanced; and in view of the excessive length and repetitiveness

Griffiths's overview, one can hardly suspect that sheer limitations of ice made him hold back essential information which however was at his sposal.

   In 1980 (cf. Grootenhuis 1983; van Binsbergen 1981) the African idies Centre decided to reorganize its research activities. The struc-re of about ten small sections - one among them the African law section ?as supplanted by two major interdisciplinary research departments, one icentrating on rural development, the other on state and society in both ilstorical and a contemporary perspective. Research activities came to

 structured, no longer by academic discipline, but around these two jad themes. As a transitional measure, only too common in cases of stitutional reorganization,  this shift was not immediately implemented

 the full extent, and the small law section was allowed to persist for ne time as a monodisciplinary anomaly; this anomaly has recently been rminated by the Board, thus making definitive what Griffiths still Eers to as a proposal (the dissolution of the law section). The program-3 of both departments had, from their first formulation in 1980-81, been Eficiently broad so as to encompass the study of relevant legal aspects

 the state and/or rural development (Hoorweg 1981; van Binsbergen 1982). as, the programme of the department of political science and history had am its very inception stressed the importance of research in constitu-snal law (van Binsbergen 1982: 15).

   Griffiths's footnote 58 in the long passage quoted above (Griffiths 83: 160), placed so as to suggest that it is going to reveal the name or nes of the current leadership of the African Studies Centre - allegedly

insensitive to the study of African law - only mentions Holleman's leadership up to 1969. Since 1980, the scientific leadership has been in the hands of Hoorweg and myself, as heads of the two research departments; the library is managed by Van der Meulen; general management has for many years been Grootenhuis's province; while a Board, and a Board of Trustees, check long-term policy decisions. I am head of the department specifically mentioned by Griffiths. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that his devastating criticism is largely directed at me, as one entrusted with the formulation and implementation of the department's research policy (2).

      However, the real issue is not ray person, scholarly performance, or the discipline I was trained in, but revolves on the following questions:

      - Is our department a good environment for African law research, in terms of both personnel and of explicitly stated research programmes and policies?

      - If these conditions are essentially positive, what kind of African law research should we have in such a department? Only if the answer to this question would be: 'monodisciplinary law research', would it be a liability to the department and to legal research therein if its head were not a lawyer or legal anthropologist.

      Our present department and its composition show that meaningful law research can be undertaken outside a specific department of legal studies. The members of our department include Buijtenhuis, Hesseling and Konings, all of whom feature in Griffiths's account as having done work in the field of African law studies. Of these, only Hesseling is a lawyer, while Buijtenhuijs and Konings have primarily published on revolutionary movements and urban and rural class struggles within the framework of twentiethcentury African states. Other members of the department are Baesjou (whose interest in the history of litigation on the West African coast has led to a collection of papers, Palaver, co-edited by him; cf. Baesjou & Ross 1979); de Jong, whose Islamological studies pay considerable attention to Islamic law particularly in the context of Muslim mystic associations; cf. de Jong 1978); February, whose work on language problems and the position of the so-called Coloureds in South Africa strongly emphasizes legal aspects (cf. February 1976, 1981, 1983); and finally Schoenmakers, whose current research in Guinea-Bissau explicitly includes a study of constitutional processes. Until early 1984, the department included Van Leynseele, about half of whose Leiden doctorate, 1979, deals with the legal institutions of Libinza society, Zaire - another omission in Griffiths bibliography which however claims to be complete. In short, I could hardly imagine, in the country, a research department where the study of African law would find a more stimulating and competent setting -provided one accepts the view that African legal studies should not be conducted in a monodisciplinary vacuum but should form part of an overall interdisciplinary research commitment to the African continent and its problems.

      Admittedly, the existence of such a setting would still only compensate for the dissolution of the pre-existing African law section, if within our department specific research projects are to be undertaken focussing on African law. Griffiths suggests that this is not the case, but he is wrong.

      Now that the Senegal project on land law and state-imposed legal change is nearing completion, new law projects are being proposed within the department of political science and history. The African Studies Centre's commitment to the study of law in Africa remains as firm as ever. While we agree with Griffiths that African law research should be undertaken by experienced professionals (lawyers, legal anthropologists, legal sociologists), there is no reason why their research should be undertaken on a monodisciplinary basis, i.e. in a separate law department or law section. As is the case internationally in the field of African Studies, disciplinary boundaries are fading at the African Studies Centre; our record of recent publications, and list of research projects, may indicate that this is a good thing. Of course, much of this interdisciplinary work is not specifically on law in Africa; but why should an approach that has proved to be productive in such related fields as sociology, anthropology, political science, history and the science of literature, be such a bad thing if applied to socio-legal studies as well?

      At the same time it should be emphasized that African law studies are by no means to be confined to legal anthropology. Law in Africa today exists not only, not even primarily, at the level of villages and of chiefs' traditional courts. The interaction between historical judicial forms on the one hand, and modern law as formulated by the state on the other (a topic on which the research programme of our previous law section revolved) may be important, but again it is by no means the only topic worthy of Africanist legal research. Thus if one concentrates on land tenure and land reform, one soon learns that legal anthropologists (mainly trained to work at the level of face-to-face social relations) are not optimally equipped to study the intricate formal legal procedures African bureaucracies generate and impose at the national and regional level. This is why the execution of our Senegal land reform project has been primarily entrusted to an experienced constitutional lawyer (Hesseling), while the work of the more junior anthropologist (Sypkens-Smit) was confined to the village level. In our department of political science and history, where research focusses on the economic and ideological dimensions of the state in precolonial, colonial and postcolonial Africa, we may well contemplate topics in the study of African law which Griffiths (1983: 163) would deem "marginal" from a legal-anthropological point of view: national constitutional processes, as both creating and reflecting power structures and ideological tendencies in the society at large; the legal constraints governing processes of information and participation, including forms of political and religious association (political parties, Islamic pious associations, Christian churches), the press and other media; legal aspects of the organization of economic life, from Islamic banking corporations such as have recently been established throughout West Africa, via a large variety of parastatal bodies, to labour legislation, trade unions, land reform and the legal-organizational structure of rural development projects; the challenges which established constitutional structures are facing from the part of revolutionary movements and liberation movements (e.g. Chad, South Africa); interstatal interactions in the way of treaties, international bodies, armed conflict; and legal aspects of such pressing national and international African problems as famine, refugees etc.

      If we agree that the study of law should form an integral part of African studies, we should strive towards the selection of research topics that combine scientific and societal relevance to the highest possible degree (cf. van Binsbergen 1982: 7-11); we should also maintain and expand relations of intellectual exchange within and across our national boundaries. Regretfully, the tone and content of Griffiths's review suggest that in this process we can expect very little help from him and his associates.

 

 

NOTES

(1) I am indebted to several of my colleagues for criticism of earlier drafts; however, the responsibility for the views expressed here is entirely mine.

(2) Being only human, I cannot repress the temptation to produce here summarily my (admittedly limited) credentials in the field of African legal studies (cf. Griffiths 1983: 169; van Binsbergen 1977; 1981: 51f, 57f; Hesseling 1982: 2; Doornbos, Hesseling & van Binsbergen, in press). I would readily agree with Griffiths that this is not enough to qualify as a legal anthropologist; but that is immaterial. One cannot expect the leadership of a multidisciplinary research structure to be fully qualified in all disciplines involved - the essential thing is the existence of explicit policy that provides room and stimulus for these various dis ciplines.

(1)

The African Studies Centre

 

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REFERENCES

Baesjou, R., & R. Ross (eds) (1979), Palaver; European Interference in

 African Dispute Settlement, African Perspectives, 1979/2, Leiden: African Studies Centre.

De Jong, F. (1978), Turuq and Turuq-linked Institutions in nineteenth-century Egypt, Leiden: Brill.

Doornbos, M.R., G.S.C.M. Hesseling & W.M.J. van Binsbergen, (in press), 'Content and Process of French-language Constitutional Preambles in Africa1, in: Van Binsbergen & Hesseling, in press.

February, V.A. (ed.) (1976), White Minorities Black Majorities, African Perspectives, 1976/1, Leiden: African Studies Centre.

February, V.A. (1981), Mind Your Colour, London/Boston: Kegan Paul International.

February, V.A. (ed.) (1983), From the Arsenal, Leiden: African Studies Centre.

Griffiths, J. (1983), 'Anthropology of law in the Netherlands in the 1970s', NNR (Nieuwsbrief voor nederlandstalige rechtsociologen, rechtsantropologen en rechtspsychologen), 4, 2: 132-240.

Grootenhuis, G.W. (1983), 'Beleidsnotitie1, Leiden: African Studies Centre.

Harrell-Bond, B.E., A.M. Howard & D.E. Skinner, (1978), Community Leadership and the Transformation of Freetown (1801-1976), Paris/The Hague: Mouton.

Hesseling, G.S.C.M. (1982), Senegal: Staatsrechtelijke en Politieke Ontwikkelingen, Antwerpen: M. Kluwer; French translation in press, Paris: Karthala.

Hoorweg, J. (1981), 'Department of Social and Economic Studies: Research Programme1, Leiden: African Studies Centre.

Kloos, P., & H.J.M. Claessen (eds) (1975), Current Anthropology in the Netherlands, Rotterdam: Netherlands Sociological and Anthropological Association.

Kloos, P., & H.J.M. Claessen (eds) (1981), Current Issues in Anthropology; The Netherlands, Rotterdam: Netherlands Sociological and Anthropological Association.

Van Binsbergen, W.M.J. (1977), 'Law in the Context of Nkoya Society', in: S. Roberts (ed.), Law and the Family in Africa. Paris/The Hague: Mouton, pp. 39-68.

Van Binsbergen, W.M.J. (1981 ), 'Dutch Anthropology of Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1970s', in: Kloos & Claessen 1981: 45-84; also separately reprinted, Leiden: African Studies Centre, 1982; French translation in: Agence de Cooperation culturelle et technique (eds), Etudes africaines en Europe, (1981), Paris: Karthala, vol. 1, pp. 277-312.

Van Binsbergen, W.M.J. (1982), 'Department of Political Science and History: Research Programme 1981-1986', Leiden: African Studies Centre.

Van Binsbergen, W.M.J. & G.S.C.M. Hesseling (eds) (in press) Aspecten van Staat en Maatschappij in Afrika: Recent Nederlands en Belgisch Onderzoek, Leiden: African Studies Centre.

Van Leynseele, P. (1979), 'Les Libinza de la Ngizi', doctoral dissertation, Leiden University.

 

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