Gender, Power, and Legal Pluralism

Rajasthan, India

Bibliographic Data

ID2992123
AuthorsErin P Moore (University of Southern California, corresponding author)
Year1993
Volume20
Issue3
Pages522-542
Publication date1993-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/ae.1993.20.3.02a00040
OpenAlexW2150435101
LanguageDE
Citations received34
References cited41

Villagers in rural northeastern Rajasthan, India, most frequently take their disputes to either the local village councils or the state courts. But the councils and courts are manipulated by powerful men; women and low-status men cannot find their justice in these forums. Stretching the boundaries of the law to include the work of a Muslim spiritual teacher and healer, or maulavi, can help us understand the victims of the central legal systems. Both men and women may seek remedies to social and physical problems by visiting a maulavi, and for women, a trip to the healer may become a form of resistance to male ideological hegemony. Attention to spirit possession, stress-related illnesses, and traditional healers lends us new insight into cultural conceptions of justice, resistance, and the role of gender in legal pluralism. [legal pluralism, healers, India, Islam, women and resistance

Economic Justice · Geography · Hegemony · Ideology · Islam · Legal pluralism · Legal profession · Legal realism · Pluralism (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Possession (linguistics · Power (physics · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Law · Law in Society and Culture · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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