Browsing by Author "Diala, Jane Chinonyerem"

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    The distortion of the meaning of bride wealth: significance for the evolution of living customary law in southern Nigeria
    (2014) Diala, Jane Chinonyerem; Smythe Dee
    Nigeria’s Constitution does not provide for the interaction of the received English law, statutory law, and customary law. Bride wealth, an important aspect of customary law in southeast Nigeria, symbolises the bride’s worth to her family, as well as a bond between the bride and groom’s families. The changes introduced by colonial rule distorted its meaning to the extent that people disobeyed legislation enacted to curb excessive bride wealth. This disobedience is traceable to socio-economic and cultural factors founded on people’s survival needs. This disobedience has great significance for the evolution of living customary law, legal pluralism, and success of development projects in Nigeria. It signifies that development policies should take into consideration the living customary laws of people at the receiving end of development projects. At a broader level, it also signifies participation of local communities indecision-making that affects them. The thesis suggests that implementation of wide ranging consultations during the law-making process will strengthen democratic institutions in Nigeria.
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    The interplay of structure and agency: the negotiation process of bridewealth payment in South-East Nigeria
    (2018) Diala, Jane Chinonyerem; Smythe, Dee; Moult, Kelley
    The payment of bridewealth is a near-universal cultural practice among the Igbos of SouthEast Nigeria. Bridewealth used to be a symbolic legitimator of marriage. However, its symbolism has been distorted by expensive items on marriage lists. In this context, bridewealth payment provides an excellent analytical tool for the structure-agency debate, which has, in varying degrees, engaged academic interest for centuries. Underlying this debate is the extent to which institutions determine human behaviour and its attendant power relations. While structure refers to the self-replicating, complex elements that sustain institutions, agency refers to the volitional, purpose-driven nature of human activities. In this debate, the structuralfunctionalist-Marxist view, symbolic interactionism, and complementarity view are prominent. From these views, this dissertation develops a needs-based approach to structure-agency interaction, arguing that a focus on the primacy of structure or agency obscures their underlying motivations. It posits that the structure-agency interaction is both the process and product of logical assessments and dialogue, which are driven by socio-economic needs. In the context of this framework, it explored one central question: In what ways do power relations play out in the negotiation process of bridewealth payment in South-East Nigeria? Using literature review, non-participant observation of bridewealth negotiations, and in-depth interviews of 47 key informants, it reveals an interdependent, complex web linking the custodians of culture with agentic tools such as wealth, religion, and education. Despite cultural inhibitions in spousal selection and bridewealth negotiation, prospective spouses have a range of creative tools for reducing exorbitant items on marriage lists, thereby deconstructing high bridewealth. These agentic tools are driven by socio-economic elements such as desire to marry, economic coercion, cohabitation, threat of extramarital pregnancy, and religious values. The study concludes that bridewealth negotiation reflects socio-economic dynamics within hybrid cultural spaces in which potential couples and their parents may navigate the powerful constraints of tradition or sustain tradition through their inaction. These socio-economic dynamics are so powerful that they produce widespread disregard for legislation limiting bridewealth amounts. The study’s findings demonstrate the ineffectiveness of a top-down approach to law, the value of policy sensitivity to people’s lived realities, and the importance of in-depth consultation in the formulation of legislation.