1st Edition
Routledge Readings on Law, Development and Legal Pluralism Ecology, Families, Governance
Routledge Readings on Law, Development and Legal Pluralism presents some of the finest essays on social justice, environment, rights and governance. With a lucid new Introduction, it covers a vast range of issues and offers a compelling guide to understanding the harm and risk relating to biodiversity, agro-ecology, disaster and forest rights. The book covers critical themes such as ecology, families and governance and establishes the trajectory of contemporary ecology and law in South Asia. The thirteen chapters in the volume, divided into three sections, trace violence and marginality in the plurality of families and their laws in India, as well as discuss community-based just practices. With debates on development, governance and families, the book highlights the politics and practices of law making, law reform and law application. This multidisciplinary volume foregrounds the politics and plural lives of/in law by including perspectives from major authors who have contributed to the academic and/ or policy discourse of the subject.
This book will be useful to students, scholars, policymakers and practitioners interested in a nuanced understanding of law, especially those studying law, marginality, kinship and indigeneity studies. It will serve as essential reading for those in law, socio-legal studies, environment studies and ecology, social exclusion studies, development studies, South Asian studies, human rights, jurisprudence and constitutional studies, gender studies, history, politics, conflict and peace studies, sociology and social anthropology. It will also appeal to legal historians and practitioners of law, environmentalists and those in public administration.
Introduction: The Sites and Possibilities of Interdisciplinary Law
Kalpana Kannabiran
PART I Questions of Justice: Environment, Ecology, and Disaster
1 Law, Agro-Ecology and Colonialism in Mid-Gangetic India, 1770s–1910s
Nitin Sinha
2 Historical Wrongs and Forest Rights: Nascent Jurisprudence on FRA and Participatory Evidence Making
Shomona Khanna
3 Feminist Dimension of Biodiversity Challenges
Niharika Bahl
4 An Overview of the Law Governing Hazardous Substances in the Post-Bhopal Era
T. R. Subramanya
5 Disability, Disaster and the Law: Legislating Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction
Deepa Sonpal
PART II Families in Law: Property, Custom, and Violence
6 Family, Work and Matrimonial Property: Implications for Women and Children
Kamala Sankaran
7 Sex-selective Abortion and Reproductive Rights: A Syncretic Feminist Approach
Bijayalaxmi Nanda
8 Adjudicating Domestic Violence in the Courts
Shalu Nigam
9 Feminist Activism, Violence in the Family, and Law Reform in India: A Three Decadal History
Kalpana Kannabiran
10 Saving Custom or Promoting Incest? Post-Independence Marriage Law and Dravidian Marriage Practices
Patricia Uberoi
PART III Plural Domains of Law and Governance
11 Conflict Resolution in Tribal Societies of Northeast India: Legal Pluralism and Indian Democracy
Nandita Haksar
12 Forums for Conflict Resolution in the Jaintia Tribal Community over Land Resources
Rikil Chyrmang
13 Pathalgadi Movement and Conflicting Ideologies of Tribal Village Governance
Anjana Singh
Biography
Kalpana Kannabiran is a sociologist and legal scholar, and is Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development. Among her book publications are Tools of Justice: Non-Discrimination and the Indian Constitution (2012), Gender Regimes and the Politics of Privacy: A Feminist Re-Reading of Puttaswamy vs. Union of India (2021), Law, Justice and Human Rights in India: Short Reflections (2021) and the edited volumes Violence Studies (2016) and Re-Presenting Feminist Methodologies: Interdisciplinary Explorations (2017). Based in Hyderabad, India, she was formerly Professor and Director at the Council for Social Development, Southern Regional Centre, has taught at NALSAR University of Law, and is co-founder of Asmita Resource Centre for Women. She is a recipient of the VKRV Rao Prize for Social Science Research (2003) and the Amartya Sen Award for Distinguished Social Scientists (2012), both for her work in the field of law.
'Routledge Readings on Law, Development and Legal Pluralism will be of extraordinary interest to legal scholars, and scholars in environment and ecology, kinship and indigeneity studies, as well as practitioners. Engaging with concepts of harm and risk the first section connects the rich literature on biodiversity, agro-ecology, disaster, forest rights establishing the rich trajectory of contemporary ecology and law. The second section traces violence and marginality in the plurality of families and their laws in India, while the final section foregrounds legal pluralism. The three inter-connected sections highlight the politics and practices of law making, law reform and law application.'
Rukmini Sen, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi, India
'This is an important and much needed collection of rich, textured and critical articles on most significant themes in law. It contains three sections on important contemporary issues of environment, families, and legal pluralism. This volume begins with perhaps the most significant crisis of the times — environment, ecology and disasters, and the role of law and public policy. The second section on Families in Law reflect feminist analyses of the family as the site of discrimination and violence. The last section on legal pluralism is a good closing for this volume compelling readers to examine if non-formal, non-state mechanisms of conflict resolution can co-exist with the formal adversarial legal system in India. This volume is ideal as a ready reckoner on important issues in law and justice in India.'
Ruchira Goswami, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, India
