Negotiating law in the peripheries of Southern Ethiopia

该项目将重点关注最近在埃塞俄比亚南部实施的国家法律是如何在以前相当偏远的社区和当地政府官员（其中许多人是该地区的本地人）之间进行谈判的。埃塞俄比亚从未被殖民过，直到20世纪60年代才引入其现代成文法，尽可能吸收当时占主导地位的高地群体的习惯法。当时，南部低地的研究地区只是勉强被纳入民族国家，直到今天，冲突仍然几乎完全在当地解决。最近，政府开始施加压力，要求在所有地区更严格地执行国家法律。然而，由于1995年埃塞俄比亚新宪法赠款所有族裔群体和文化平等待遇，并在某种程度上允许适用习惯法，因此为谈判和创造性地处理冲突留下了余地，研究将特别关注1）当地社区的决策过程，其中法律的论坛（在当地或法庭上）讨论2）男性和女性可能做出的选择以及他们获得的利益的差异3）与政府当局谈判的领域，政府当局在两种相互矛盾的价值体系之间航行（国家法和习惯法）4）国际法的直接和间接存在（特别是人权）及其对法律的服务寻求者和服务提供者的决策过程的影响。（观察、结构化和非结构化访谈、小组讨论、扩展的案例研究），涉及多个行为者的观点。将在埃塞俄比亚联邦国家各级审查法律的文件，这项研究将有助于不断增加的关于创造性地处理法律多元化情况的文献;有助于从不同利益攸关方的角度（重新）形成或混合规范秩序，还将有助于对非洲法律的多元化形成一种更加性别化的看法。

The project will focus on how the recent enforcement of state law in Southern Ethiopia is negotiated between a previously rather remote community and the local government officials many of whom are native to the area.Ethiopia was never colonized and introduced its modern codified law only in the 1960s, assimilating customary laws of the then dominant highland groups as much as possible. At that time, the study area in the southern lowlands has only marginally been included into the nation state and until today conflicts are still almost exclusively resolved locally. Recently the government began to put pressure for a stricter implementation of state law in all territories. Yet, as the new Ethiopian constitution of 1995 grants equal treatment for all ethnic groups and cultures and allows to some extent the application of customary law, room is left for negotiation and a creative handling of conflicts, both on the side of service seekers and also service providers.The research will specifically focus on1) decision making processes in the local community in which legal forum (locally or in court) to choose2) differences in the choices men and women might make and the benefits they attain3) areas of negotiation with government authorities who navigate between two contradicting value systems (state law and customary law)4) direct and indirect presence of international law (especially human rights) in the study area and its influence on the decision making processes of both, legal service seekers and service providers.Data will be collected doing ethnographic fieldwork, using mostly qualitative methods (observation, structured and unstructured interviews, group discussions, extended case studies) addressing multiple actors' perspectives. Legal documents will be reviewed at different levels of the Ethiopian federal state.The study will contribute to the growing literature on the creative handling of legally plural situations; to (re-)formation or hybridization of normative orders the perspective of different stakeholders, it will also contribute to a more gendered view on African legal pluralism.