Interpretations of Justice: Conceptions of Family and Gender Justice at a Nari Adalat (Women’s Court) in South India

Abstract

This article is a socio-legal study situated at the intersection of legal anthropology, sociology of law, and gender studies. It addresses interpretations of family and gender justice by analyzing a family dispute brought before a women’s court in the rural northern part of Karnataka, a state in South India. The analysis is based on ethnographic material collected during a 7-month fieldwork stay. The trials presented provide insight into the potential and the limitations of the women’s court and into the structural conditions upon which success in this comparatively new legal arena depends. In doing so, the article identifies the power structures and obstacles within and beyond the family that restrict women in their quest for justice. The article presents the argument that the family itself plays an ambivalent role: It is a constraint, but can also support the woman’s attempt to increase family and gender justice in family conflicts. To understand this ambivalence properly, one must attend to what family and gender justice mean in any given context and how particular family relations shape this concept beyond a normative liberal reading.