Elizabeth Cooper received her degrees from the University of Oxford (DPhil and MPhil in Social Anthropology) and the University of British Columbia (MA in Planning, BA in International Relations). Her doctoral research focused on individual and collective experiences of orphanhood due to HIV and AIDS in western Kenya. Elizabeth has also conducted and published academic and policy-focused research concerning poverty, forced migration, violence, child protection, and land rights in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Mozambique.
While anthropological scholarship on the life course transitions of young people has aimed to con... more While anthropological scholarship on the life course transitions of young people has aimed to contribute to theories of structure and agency, social reproduction and change, it has done so relatively independently from the anthropological literature on subject formation. This paper explores how subjectivity – how people feel, think, and experience – is implicated in grappling with life course transitions. It addresses how ‘being serious’ is considered a critical adult competency and its achievement delineates a key life transition that young women in western Kenya variously resent and value, resist and seek. The analysis illuminates ways in which people grapple with their own subjectivity as a problem as well as a project, and how such problems and projects of subjectivity are problems and projects of social reproduction. I argue that taking account of such subjective transformations can augment political economy analysis of meanings and modes of life.
This article considers the efforts people in western Kenya have been making to uphold an ideology... more This article considers the efforts people in western Kenya have been making to uphold an ideology and practice of the natal home and kin group as morally authoritative, in a context where the very survival of many homes and families has been compromised by the devastating effects of AIDS-related deaths and impoverishment. It traces how orphaned adults, who have little experience or memory of living among natal kin at natal homes, make concerted efforts to reconnect – often in necessarily improvised ways – with what survives of their natal kin and home. For women, in particular, such efforts seem less motivated by immediate material interests and more focused on demonstrating lineal solidarity as a means to affirming their moral personhood and value. The analysis addresses how people lacking shared everyday experiences of kinship and homes sustain the possibility of their kinship futures through a combination of imagination and ideological commitment.
Nearly every week there are stories of destructive fires in Kenyan secondary schools. Most of the... more Nearly every week there are stories of destructive fires in Kenyan secondary schools. Most of these are suspected arson cases, and the usual suspects are the schools’ current students. This article provides the first analysis of the recent spate of school-based fire incidents, based on a comprehensive survey of media, government, and court reports, as well as primary data collected through interviews with students, educators, and administrators. This evidence clearly demonstrates that school-based arson is a phenomenon that spans regions in Kenya, and occurs in boys’, girls’, and mixed schools, private and public schools, and across school calendars. Current and former students explain this trend in terms of arson’s effectiveness as a tactic in protest politics. Based on these findings, I argue that school-based arson is indicative of more than the contested conditions of education in Kenya today. The use of arson by students reflects what this generation has learned about how protest and politics work in Kenya. Students’
recognition that destructive collective actions are efficacious in winning a response from authorities highlights that learning and feeds a reactionary mode of governance in which citizens’ initiatives tend to be neglected until they pose direct threats to public peace and financing.
There is widespread apprehension about the resilience of the ‘traditional African’ model of the e... more There is widespread apprehension about the resilience of the ‘traditional African’ model of the extended family in maintaining norms and practices of inter-group cooperation and care in conditions of demographic, social and economic change. In Nyanza Province, Kenya, where one of every five children is currently orphaned, and HIV/AIDS and wide-scale poverty continue to render lives and livelihoods insecure, many people are not able to take their families’ care for granted. Ideas and practices of kinship have been challenged profoundly by questions regarding who is responsible for the care of orphaned children. This article looks at two complementary practices among Luo families in western Kenya that address such dilemmas: the communal initiative of ‘sitting’ as a family to discuss and resolve issues in a cooperative and consensual manner; and the individualistic initiative of ‘standing’ to represent the interests of another individual. I suggest that while the immediate purposes of sitting and standing are pragmatic in assigning caring responsibilities for specific children, their eventfulness also actualizes something greater: trust, reciprocity and solidarity among extended families.
This paper explores how an ostensibly child-centred system can fail to protect children. In some ... more This paper explores how an ostensibly child-centred system can fail to protect children. In some policy arenas, the Kenyan state is recognised as a leader in Africa for the care and protection of children at risk. Yet a case study of children’s experiences illuminates how, despite adherence to a legislated framework and series of protocols, the Kenyan state proves unable or unwilling to ensure children’s care and protection. The deployment of child-focused discourse and practice through bureaucratic documentation and judicial rulings camouflages (poorly) the state’s neglect of children’s perspectives and the fundamental risks to children, families, and communities.
This paper is comprised of a literature review and an annotated bibliography of past and current ... more This paper is comprised of a literature review and an annotated bibliography of past and current empirical and theoretical scholarship and policy analysis concerning the de jure and de facto rules and norms of inheritance practices in African societies, particularly with regard to physical assets, and their effects on the intergenerational transmission (IGT) of poverty. The paper has two complementary sections: 1) a literature review which provides a critical overview of the key questions, methods and findings of investigations concerning inheritance and poverty in African societies; and 2) an annotated bibliography, which lists and summarises relevant works on the same issues.
The literature review and annotated bibliography present recent scholarship which has contributed to the case for investigating the links between inheritance systems and IGT poverty. These foundational conceptual works address how inheritance systems may implicate poverty processes in African societies, the significance of physical assets to chronic and IGT poverty, and theoretical models of the correlations between inheritance structures and economic status that have been developed in non-African contexts. Studies of so called ‘traditional’ inheritance practices among particular societies in Africa are then reviewed. Following this is a summary of research that discusses the legal and socio-political contexts within which inheritance systems in African countries operate, and attends to analysis of how and why inheritance rules and practices have changed. The last two sections of the literature review and annotated bibliography profile recent scholarship that explicitly examines inheritance rules and practices for their poverty implications in African societies. Central to questions of inheritance inclusion and exclusion are property rights, and the bulk of this body of poverty studies literature addresses women’s exclusion from land ownership in Africa. As such, attention is paid to work that analyses gender equity in property and inheritance rights as well as opportunities for legal reform in particular African countries. The final chapters of the literature review and bibliography reflect the focus of recent poverty studies on identifying categories of people who are particularly vulnerable to chronic poverty, and specifically groups whose vulnerability is exacerbated by their exclusion or inequality in inheritance systems. The reviews account for those studies that focus on the poverty effects of exclusionary inheritance rules and practices for widowed women, children and households affected by HIV/AIDS.
In many Sub-Saharan African societies, inheritance is one of the most common means by which physi... more In many Sub-Saharan African societies, inheritance is one of the most common means by which physical property is transferred from one generation to another. As such, policy initiatives concerning the intergenerational transmission of poverty (IGT poverty) would do well to attend to how inheritance systems are governed, and particularly which considerations affect who is included and excluded. This requires examination of both legal and political rights of property ownership, as well as context-specific values, norms and dynamics of social organisation.
This paper is a review of existing research and policy that address issues of inheritance and IGT poverty. It is organised into three main sections: the first outlines what is known about how inheritance correlates with IGT poverty; the middle section discusses specific initiatives that have been proposed or taken to affect inheritance in Sub-Saharan African countries; and the last section lists some key points for policy makers and researchers to consider in developing future initiatives concerning inheritance and IGT poverty.
This collection of articles contains new and important findings concerning
the scale and signific... more This collection of articles contains new and important findings concerning the scale and significance of asset transfers through inheritance among different populations, as well as the ways in which inheritance affects economic and social status and mobility. Evidence exists of women commonly losing access to assets when properties are redistributed following a spouse’s death. This and the household effects of gaining or losing access to heritable property highlight the gendered and intergenerational dimensions of inheritance. As an introduction to the collection, this article provides an overview of how inheritance has been understood in poverty-related policy and research up to now. We then synthesise what the new findings presented in this collection tell us about inheritance as a crucial factor in women’s poverty and the intergenerational transmission of poverty, highlighting what other researchers and policy-makers can take from this research to address the gendered and intergenerational dimensions of inheritance in different contexts
This article analyses how inheritance is being addressed to enhance
socio-economic equity and opp... more This article analyses how inheritance is being addressed to enhance socio-economic equity and opportunities in five sub-Saharan African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda. Based on interviews with governmental and non-governmental actors, as well as policy analysis and reviews of the literature, it considers how inheritance is understood as a public policy issue, and focuses attention on three areas that offer opportunities for safeguarding women’s inheritance: marriage; customary land governance; and local arbitration. Initiatives to change policies and practices related to these areas are discussed, together with the lessons that can be learned.
Given the uniquely disempowering context of the refugee camp, and particularly the limitations on... more Given the uniquely disempowering context of the refugee camp, and particularly the limitations on young refugees’ opportunities for realizing self-determination and self-sufficiency, it cannot be assumed that participatory action research (PAR) is an applicable methodology. This paper analyzes whether a PAR project conducted with youth in a long-term refugee camp in northeastern Kenya contributed to the empowerment of participants. An account of the experiences and outcomes of the PAR project is provided from the perspectives of the visiting facilitator and the youth participants. These accounts demonstrate the important psychological gains and capacity building that PAR can support, but also reflect the inherent tensions of applying PAR in situations where participants are not expected to gain enough power to significantly change their disempowering circumstances.
This paper reports on an initiative that took the strategy of youth consultation in programme pla... more This paper reports on an initiative that took the strategy of youth consultation in programme planning one step further by putting a research project’s design, data collection, analysis and presentation of findings in the hands of young women and men who have experienced education and discontinuity of education in a long-term refugee camp. The participatory action research (PAR) process is described and assessed with attention to how PAR may serve as a practical, credible and ethical methodology for research with refugee youths about refugee youths. This case study reflects that PAR can yield new insights for developing youth-focused initiatives and positive personal experiences for youth participants, including limited forms of empowerment. Ultimately, however, the structural inequalities imposed by refugee status require redress if the goal is the long-term empowerment of youths in camps.
Resilience is an increasingly popular term employed in child development and international develo... more Resilience is an increasingly popular term employed in child development and international development discourse. Applied to childhood poverty, poverty over the life course and the intergenerational transmission of poverty, the resilience of boys and girls may be considered as serving as a conceptual and analytical tool for examining the ways in which young humans are able to overcome the negative outcomes of poverty and prevent its transfer within families, households and communities. This paper reviews the development and application of the concept and assesses its usefulness for poverty researchers and practitioners. Since resilience has not yet achieved a generally accepted definition or a credible theory of how it functions, it does not benefit the field with improved analytical precision. Efforts to improve understanding of the causes and effects of children’s poverty and the intergenerational transmission of poverty would be better served by relinquishing the metaphor of resilience while retaining the focus on particular factors that moderate and mediate poverty experiences and outcomes.
This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as w... more This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa. The relevance of the focus on uncertainty in Africa is not only that contemporary life is objectively risky and unpredictable (since it is so everywhere and in every period), but that uncertainty has become a dominant trope in the subjective experience of life in contemporary African societies. The contributors investigate how uncertainty animates people's ways of knowing and being across the continent. An introduction and eight ethnographic studies examine uncertainty as a social resource that can be used to negotiate insecurity, conduct and create relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future. These in-depth accounts demonstrate that uncertainty does not exist as an autonomous, external condition. Rather, uncertainty is entwined with social relations and shapes people's relationship between the present and the future. By foregrounding uncertainty, this volume advances our understandings of the contingency of practice, both socially and temporally.
While anthropological scholarship on the life course transitions of young people has aimed to con... more While anthropological scholarship on the life course transitions of young people has aimed to contribute to theories of structure and agency, social reproduction and change, it has done so relatively independently from the anthropological literature on subject formation. This paper explores how subjectivity – how people feel, think, and experience – is implicated in grappling with life course transitions. It addresses how ‘being serious’ is considered a critical adult competency and its achievement delineates a key life transition that young women in western Kenya variously resent and value, resist and seek. The analysis illuminates ways in which people grapple with their own subjectivity as a problem as well as a project, and how such problems and projects of subjectivity are problems and projects of social reproduction. I argue that taking account of such subjective transformations can augment political economy analysis of meanings and modes of life.
This article considers the efforts people in western Kenya have been making to uphold an ideology... more This article considers the efforts people in western Kenya have been making to uphold an ideology and practice of the natal home and kin group as morally authoritative, in a context where the very survival of many homes and families has been compromised by the devastating effects of AIDS-related deaths and impoverishment. It traces how orphaned adults, who have little experience or memory of living among natal kin at natal homes, make concerted efforts to reconnect – often in necessarily improvised ways – with what survives of their natal kin and home. For women, in particular, such efforts seem less motivated by immediate material interests and more focused on demonstrating lineal solidarity as a means to affirming their moral personhood and value. The analysis addresses how people lacking shared everyday experiences of kinship and homes sustain the possibility of their kinship futures through a combination of imagination and ideological commitment.
Nearly every week there are stories of destructive fires in Kenyan secondary schools. Most of the... more Nearly every week there are stories of destructive fires in Kenyan secondary schools. Most of these are suspected arson cases, and the usual suspects are the schools’ current students. This article provides the first analysis of the recent spate of school-based fire incidents, based on a comprehensive survey of media, government, and court reports, as well as primary data collected through interviews with students, educators, and administrators. This evidence clearly demonstrates that school-based arson is a phenomenon that spans regions in Kenya, and occurs in boys’, girls’, and mixed schools, private and public schools, and across school calendars. Current and former students explain this trend in terms of arson’s effectiveness as a tactic in protest politics. Based on these findings, I argue that school-based arson is indicative of more than the contested conditions of education in Kenya today. The use of arson by students reflects what this generation has learned about how protest and politics work in Kenya. Students’
recognition that destructive collective actions are efficacious in winning a response from authorities highlights that learning and feeds a reactionary mode of governance in which citizens’ initiatives tend to be neglected until they pose direct threats to public peace and financing.
There is widespread apprehension about the resilience of the ‘traditional African’ model of the e... more There is widespread apprehension about the resilience of the ‘traditional African’ model of the extended family in maintaining norms and practices of inter-group cooperation and care in conditions of demographic, social and economic change. In Nyanza Province, Kenya, where one of every five children is currently orphaned, and HIV/AIDS and wide-scale poverty continue to render lives and livelihoods insecure, many people are not able to take their families’ care for granted. Ideas and practices of kinship have been challenged profoundly by questions regarding who is responsible for the care of orphaned children. This article looks at two complementary practices among Luo families in western Kenya that address such dilemmas: the communal initiative of ‘sitting’ as a family to discuss and resolve issues in a cooperative and consensual manner; and the individualistic initiative of ‘standing’ to represent the interests of another individual. I suggest that while the immediate purposes of sitting and standing are pragmatic in assigning caring responsibilities for specific children, their eventfulness also actualizes something greater: trust, reciprocity and solidarity among extended families.
This paper explores how an ostensibly child-centred system can fail to protect children. In some ... more This paper explores how an ostensibly child-centred system can fail to protect children. In some policy arenas, the Kenyan state is recognised as a leader in Africa for the care and protection of children at risk. Yet a case study of children’s experiences illuminates how, despite adherence to a legislated framework and series of protocols, the Kenyan state proves unable or unwilling to ensure children’s care and protection. The deployment of child-focused discourse and practice through bureaucratic documentation and judicial rulings camouflages (poorly) the state’s neglect of children’s perspectives and the fundamental risks to children, families, and communities.
This paper is comprised of a literature review and an annotated bibliography of past and current ... more This paper is comprised of a literature review and an annotated bibliography of past and current empirical and theoretical scholarship and policy analysis concerning the de jure and de facto rules and norms of inheritance practices in African societies, particularly with regard to physical assets, and their effects on the intergenerational transmission (IGT) of poverty. The paper has two complementary sections: 1) a literature review which provides a critical overview of the key questions, methods and findings of investigations concerning inheritance and poverty in African societies; and 2) an annotated bibliography, which lists and summarises relevant works on the same issues.
The literature review and annotated bibliography present recent scholarship which has contributed to the case for investigating the links between inheritance systems and IGT poverty. These foundational conceptual works address how inheritance systems may implicate poverty processes in African societies, the significance of physical assets to chronic and IGT poverty, and theoretical models of the correlations between inheritance structures and economic status that have been developed in non-African contexts. Studies of so called ‘traditional’ inheritance practices among particular societies in Africa are then reviewed. Following this is a summary of research that discusses the legal and socio-political contexts within which inheritance systems in African countries operate, and attends to analysis of how and why inheritance rules and practices have changed. The last two sections of the literature review and annotated bibliography profile recent scholarship that explicitly examines inheritance rules and practices for their poverty implications in African societies. Central to questions of inheritance inclusion and exclusion are property rights, and the bulk of this body of poverty studies literature addresses women’s exclusion from land ownership in Africa. As such, attention is paid to work that analyses gender equity in property and inheritance rights as well as opportunities for legal reform in particular African countries. The final chapters of the literature review and bibliography reflect the focus of recent poverty studies on identifying categories of people who are particularly vulnerable to chronic poverty, and specifically groups whose vulnerability is exacerbated by their exclusion or inequality in inheritance systems. The reviews account for those studies that focus on the poverty effects of exclusionary inheritance rules and practices for widowed women, children and households affected by HIV/AIDS.
In many Sub-Saharan African societies, inheritance is one of the most common means by which physi... more In many Sub-Saharan African societies, inheritance is one of the most common means by which physical property is transferred from one generation to another. As such, policy initiatives concerning the intergenerational transmission of poverty (IGT poverty) would do well to attend to how inheritance systems are governed, and particularly which considerations affect who is included and excluded. This requires examination of both legal and political rights of property ownership, as well as context-specific values, norms and dynamics of social organisation.
This paper is a review of existing research and policy that address issues of inheritance and IGT poverty. It is organised into three main sections: the first outlines what is known about how inheritance correlates with IGT poverty; the middle section discusses specific initiatives that have been proposed or taken to affect inheritance in Sub-Saharan African countries; and the last section lists some key points for policy makers and researchers to consider in developing future initiatives concerning inheritance and IGT poverty.
This collection of articles contains new and important findings concerning
the scale and signific... more This collection of articles contains new and important findings concerning the scale and significance of asset transfers through inheritance among different populations, as well as the ways in which inheritance affects economic and social status and mobility. Evidence exists of women commonly losing access to assets when properties are redistributed following a spouse’s death. This and the household effects of gaining or losing access to heritable property highlight the gendered and intergenerational dimensions of inheritance. As an introduction to the collection, this article provides an overview of how inheritance has been understood in poverty-related policy and research up to now. We then synthesise what the new findings presented in this collection tell us about inheritance as a crucial factor in women’s poverty and the intergenerational transmission of poverty, highlighting what other researchers and policy-makers can take from this research to address the gendered and intergenerational dimensions of inheritance in different contexts
This article analyses how inheritance is being addressed to enhance
socio-economic equity and opp... more This article analyses how inheritance is being addressed to enhance socio-economic equity and opportunities in five sub-Saharan African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda. Based on interviews with governmental and non-governmental actors, as well as policy analysis and reviews of the literature, it considers how inheritance is understood as a public policy issue, and focuses attention on three areas that offer opportunities for safeguarding women’s inheritance: marriage; customary land governance; and local arbitration. Initiatives to change policies and practices related to these areas are discussed, together with the lessons that can be learned.
Given the uniquely disempowering context of the refugee camp, and particularly the limitations on... more Given the uniquely disempowering context of the refugee camp, and particularly the limitations on young refugees’ opportunities for realizing self-determination and self-sufficiency, it cannot be assumed that participatory action research (PAR) is an applicable methodology. This paper analyzes whether a PAR project conducted with youth in a long-term refugee camp in northeastern Kenya contributed to the empowerment of participants. An account of the experiences and outcomes of the PAR project is provided from the perspectives of the visiting facilitator and the youth participants. These accounts demonstrate the important psychological gains and capacity building that PAR can support, but also reflect the inherent tensions of applying PAR in situations where participants are not expected to gain enough power to significantly change their disempowering circumstances.
This paper reports on an initiative that took the strategy of youth consultation in programme pla... more This paper reports on an initiative that took the strategy of youth consultation in programme planning one step further by putting a research project’s design, data collection, analysis and presentation of findings in the hands of young women and men who have experienced education and discontinuity of education in a long-term refugee camp. The participatory action research (PAR) process is described and assessed with attention to how PAR may serve as a practical, credible and ethical methodology for research with refugee youths about refugee youths. This case study reflects that PAR can yield new insights for developing youth-focused initiatives and positive personal experiences for youth participants, including limited forms of empowerment. Ultimately, however, the structural inequalities imposed by refugee status require redress if the goal is the long-term empowerment of youths in camps.
Resilience is an increasingly popular term employed in child development and international develo... more Resilience is an increasingly popular term employed in child development and international development discourse. Applied to childhood poverty, poverty over the life course and the intergenerational transmission of poverty, the resilience of boys and girls may be considered as serving as a conceptual and analytical tool for examining the ways in which young humans are able to overcome the negative outcomes of poverty and prevent its transfer within families, households and communities. This paper reviews the development and application of the concept and assesses its usefulness for poverty researchers and practitioners. Since resilience has not yet achieved a generally accepted definition or a credible theory of how it functions, it does not benefit the field with improved analytical precision. Efforts to improve understanding of the causes and effects of children’s poverty and the intergenerational transmission of poverty would be better served by relinquishing the metaphor of resilience while retaining the focus on particular factors that moderate and mediate poverty experiences and outcomes.
This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as w... more This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa. The relevance of the focus on uncertainty in Africa is not only that contemporary life is objectively risky and unpredictable (since it is so everywhere and in every period), but that uncertainty has become a dominant trope in the subjective experience of life in contemporary African societies. The contributors investigate how uncertainty animates people's ways of knowing and being across the continent. An introduction and eight ethnographic studies examine uncertainty as a social resource that can be used to negotiate insecurity, conduct and create relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future. These in-depth accounts demonstrate that uncertainty does not exist as an autonomous, external condition. Rather, uncertainty is entwined with social relations and shapes people's relationship between the present and the future. By foregrounding uncertainty, this volume advances our understandings of the contingency of practice, both socially and temporally.
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recognition that destructive collective actions are efficacious in winning a response from authorities highlights that learning and feeds a reactionary mode of governance in which citizens’ initiatives tend to be neglected until they pose direct threats to public peace and financing.
The literature review and annotated bibliography present recent scholarship which has contributed to the case for investigating the links between inheritance systems and IGT poverty. These foundational conceptual works address how inheritance systems may implicate poverty processes in African societies, the significance of physical assets to chronic and IGT poverty, and theoretical models of the correlations between inheritance structures and economic status that have been developed in non-African contexts. Studies of so called ‘traditional’ inheritance practices among particular societies in Africa are then reviewed. Following this is a summary of research that discusses the legal and socio-political contexts within which inheritance systems in African countries operate, and attends to analysis of how and why inheritance rules and practices have changed. The last two sections of the literature review and annotated bibliography profile recent scholarship that explicitly examines inheritance rules and practices for their poverty implications in African societies. Central to questions of inheritance inclusion and exclusion are property rights, and the bulk of this body of poverty studies literature addresses women’s exclusion from land ownership in Africa. As such, attention is paid to work that analyses gender equity in property and inheritance rights as well as opportunities for legal reform in particular African countries. The final chapters of the literature review and bibliography reflect the focus of recent poverty studies on identifying categories of people who are particularly vulnerable to chronic poverty, and specifically groups whose vulnerability is exacerbated by their exclusion or inequality in inheritance systems. The reviews account for those studies that focus on the poverty effects of exclusionary inheritance rules and practices for widowed women, children and households affected by HIV/AIDS.
This paper is a review of existing research and policy that address issues of inheritance and IGT poverty. It is organised into three main sections: the first outlines what is known about how inheritance correlates with IGT poverty; the middle section discusses specific initiatives that have been proposed or taken to affect inheritance in Sub-Saharan African countries; and the last section lists some key points for policy makers and researchers to consider in developing future initiatives concerning inheritance and IGT poverty.
the scale and significance of asset transfers through inheritance among
different populations, as well as the ways in which inheritance affects
economic and social status and mobility. Evidence exists of women
commonly losing access to assets when properties are redistributed
following a spouse’s death. This and the household effects of gaining or
losing access to heritable property highlight the gendered and
intergenerational dimensions of inheritance. As an introduction to the
collection, this article provides an overview of how inheritance has been
understood in poverty-related policy and research up to now. We then
synthesise what the new findings presented in this collection tell us about
inheritance as a crucial factor in women’s poverty and the
intergenerational transmission of poverty, highlighting what other
researchers and policy-makers can take from this research to address the
gendered and intergenerational dimensions of inheritance in different
contexts
socio-economic equity and opportunities in five sub-Saharan African
countries: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda. Based on
interviews with governmental and non-governmental actors, as well as
policy analysis and reviews of the literature, it considers how inheritance
is understood as a public policy issue, and focuses attention on three
areas that offer opportunities for safeguarding women’s inheritance:
marriage; customary land governance; and local arbitration. Initiatives
to change policies and practices related to these areas are discussed,
together with the lessons that can be learned.
recognition that destructive collective actions are efficacious in winning a response from authorities highlights that learning and feeds a reactionary mode of governance in which citizens’ initiatives tend to be neglected until they pose direct threats to public peace and financing.
The literature review and annotated bibliography present recent scholarship which has contributed to the case for investigating the links between inheritance systems and IGT poverty. These foundational conceptual works address how inheritance systems may implicate poverty processes in African societies, the significance of physical assets to chronic and IGT poverty, and theoretical models of the correlations between inheritance structures and economic status that have been developed in non-African contexts. Studies of so called ‘traditional’ inheritance practices among particular societies in Africa are then reviewed. Following this is a summary of research that discusses the legal and socio-political contexts within which inheritance systems in African countries operate, and attends to analysis of how and why inheritance rules and practices have changed. The last two sections of the literature review and annotated bibliography profile recent scholarship that explicitly examines inheritance rules and practices for their poverty implications in African societies. Central to questions of inheritance inclusion and exclusion are property rights, and the bulk of this body of poverty studies literature addresses women’s exclusion from land ownership in Africa. As such, attention is paid to work that analyses gender equity in property and inheritance rights as well as opportunities for legal reform in particular African countries. The final chapters of the literature review and bibliography reflect the focus of recent poverty studies on identifying categories of people who are particularly vulnerable to chronic poverty, and specifically groups whose vulnerability is exacerbated by their exclusion or inequality in inheritance systems. The reviews account for those studies that focus on the poverty effects of exclusionary inheritance rules and practices for widowed women, children and households affected by HIV/AIDS.
This paper is a review of existing research and policy that address issues of inheritance and IGT poverty. It is organised into three main sections: the first outlines what is known about how inheritance correlates with IGT poverty; the middle section discusses specific initiatives that have been proposed or taken to affect inheritance in Sub-Saharan African countries; and the last section lists some key points for policy makers and researchers to consider in developing future initiatives concerning inheritance and IGT poverty.
the scale and significance of asset transfers through inheritance among
different populations, as well as the ways in which inheritance affects
economic and social status and mobility. Evidence exists of women
commonly losing access to assets when properties are redistributed
following a spouse’s death. This and the household effects of gaining or
losing access to heritable property highlight the gendered and
intergenerational dimensions of inheritance. As an introduction to the
collection, this article provides an overview of how inheritance has been
understood in poverty-related policy and research up to now. We then
synthesise what the new findings presented in this collection tell us about
inheritance as a crucial factor in women’s poverty and the
intergenerational transmission of poverty, highlighting what other
researchers and policy-makers can take from this research to address the
gendered and intergenerational dimensions of inheritance in different
contexts
socio-economic equity and opportunities in five sub-Saharan African
countries: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda. Based on
interviews with governmental and non-governmental actors, as well as
policy analysis and reviews of the literature, it considers how inheritance
is understood as a public policy issue, and focuses attention on three
areas that offer opportunities for safeguarding women’s inheritance:
marriage; customary land governance; and local arbitration. Initiatives
to change policies and practices related to these areas are discussed,
together with the lessons that can be learned.