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Re-envisioning the local: spatiality, land and law in Botswana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2013

Anne Griffiths
Anne Griffiths*
Affiliation:
School of Law, Edinburgh University
*
Anne.Griffiths@ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

Based on an ethnographic study located in Botswana, I move beyond conceptions of the local as physically or territorially grounded to one that examines how it is constituted through links between persons and land derived from life histories extended over several generations. This not only takes account of a specific site in which social relations are bounded and locally constituted but also of how perceptions of locality are discursively and historically constructed. Viewing land as both a tangible and intangible universe constructed through social relationships, I highlight ways in which individuals, as part of a ‘local’ community, find their life courses shaped by wider transnational and global processes, including law, that have an impact on their everyday lives. For some, this provides opportunities for upward mobility and future gains, while others find scope for action severely curtailed. In documenting these uneven, diverse effects of globalisation, what emerges are processes of ‘internalisation’ and ‘relocalisation’ of global conditions, allowing for the emergence of new identities, alliances and struggles for space and power within specific populations. Thus what exists in the here and now as a form of temporality is constantly remade, drawing on the past while fashioning new prospects for the future.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 213 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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