The Spirit of the Laws in Mozambique PDF
Preview The Spirit of the Laws in Mozambique
The Spirit of the Laws in Mozambique The Spirit of the Laws in Mozambique juan obarrio the university of chicago press chicago and london juan obarrio is assistant professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2014 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2014. Printed in the United States of America 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5 isbn-13: 978-0-226-15372-8 (cloth) isbn-13: 978-0-226-15386-5 (paper) isbn-13: 978-0-226-15405-3 (e-book) doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226154053.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Obarrio, Juan, author. The spirit of the laws in Mozambique / Juan Obarrio. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-226-15372-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-226-15386-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-226-15405-3 (e-book) 1. Mozambique — Politics and government — 1994– 2. Citizenship — Mozambique. 3. Ethnology— Mozambique. I. Title. dt3389.034 2014 349.679—dc23 2014004077 a This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). for valeria Contents Introduction: The Spirit of the Laws 1 part i chapter 1. Mozambique: Before the Law 19 chapter 2. Law as History 32 chapter 3. The State of Things 63 part ii chapter 4. A Minor State 121 chapter 5. Poetic Justice 150 chapter 6. Next of Kin 176 chapter 7. Subject: To the Law 205 Conclusion 229 Acknowledgments 235 Bibliography 241 Notes 255 Index 269 Introduction The Spirit of the Laws Context “We made a terrible mistake.” This statement was made by Mozambi- can politicians, academics, and development experts linked to the ruling party in reference to the history and the present of the “customary.” I encountered versions of it sporadically during my preliminary visits to the country in 2000 and more concretely and more often during the initial months of my fieldwork a few years later. In the winter of 2004 Mozambique found itself poised before the law, summoned by the courts of an emerging order of global capital and inter- national jurisprudence.1 What was the spirit of this law? International actors speaking the intricate language of the juridical promoted once again “modernization” and “development”2 through social planning, leading toward the “rule of law” and “structural adjustment.” Within this national process, shaped by transnational vectors, multiple political agents coalesced and collided in complex articulations. Some types of authorities, such as local institutions of “popular justice,” lo- cated within a liminal juridical space, were vanishing, while others, such as chiefs, were returning, enjoying entitlements granted by a new dispen- sation of “recognition.” This broad juridical reform of the state revealed profound fractures within the national territory and its political imagina- tions. Already at the beginning of my study of the reform, I encountered decisive paradoxes. I was inquiring about questions related to the field of the political and to the postconflict transition between very different regimes, as part of a research framework that included the crucial question of the status of
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