Katherine E. Hoffman | Northwestern University (original) (raw)
Papers by Katherine E. Hoffman
Anthropologie et Sociétés, 2015
Au Maroc, les tribunaux demeurent le Saint Graal des militants amazighs qui souhaitent la légitim... more Au Maroc, les tribunaux demeurent le Saint Graal des militants amazighs qui souhaitent la légitimation institutionnelle du tamazight (langue berbère ou langue amazighe) et cherchent à mettre fin aux discriminations linguistiques et à la domination arabe dans les administrations. Les pratiques juridiques en langue vernaculaire tamazight ne sont régies par aucune politique étatique officielle, et c’est plutôt la langue arabe qui domine les affaires judiciaires. Pourtant, comme je le soutiens dans le présent article, l’ « État » emploie des individus, en particulier des juges et des officiers d’état civil, dont certains utilisent des variétés régionales de tamazight dans le cadre de leur travail, notamment pour enregistrer les mariages dans le cadre de tribunaux coutumiers ambulants, procédures qui ont fait l’objet de mes enquêtes sur le terrain et d’entrevues. Les pratiques et les idéologies langagières des juges méritent l’attention de quiconque souhaite étudier l’économie de la lang...
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Jun 1, 2004
Hespéris-Tamuda, 2021
For the ethnographer of the Maghreb interested in studying history so as to better understand the... more For the ethnographer of the Maghreb interested in studying history so as to better understand the present, a foray into the archives has become almost a rite of passage. Whereas collecting oral histories from elderly interlocutors in the field used to provide the desired testimony to change over time, anthropological critiques of narrative and memory as inherently shaped by present concerns have turned anthropologists towards paper texts produced in the past. Critiques from within anthropology as to the ethics of participant observation have fueled skepticism towards the field research endeavor, with archives appearing to provide a field “site” that avoids the problems of researcher positionality. Yet, once immersed in the archives, the ethnographer finds that the seeming certainty of historical texts is an illusion. I argue that Amazigh (Berber) women figure centrally in both Protectorate and tribal preoccupations only when the scribe worked in a format that required him to document womenʼs testimonies in verbatim or summarized procès-verbal from direct contact with women, as in customary court daybooks. In contrast, womenʼs participation in legal and political life is largely absent in Protectorate policy correspondence and tribal reports. Court daybooks provide a glimpse into the ways Anti-Atlas Mountain women, as well as men, navigated legal pluralism between local forms of Berber custom and Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence). I demonstrate how the researcher’s understanding of women’s lives and their roles in political (tribal, central state) and legal affairs differs radically depending on the sources consulted.
Hespéris-Tamuda, 2020
This article examines the multiple languages and legal codes used in the Berber customary courts ... more This article examines the multiple languages and legal codes used in the Berber customary courts (tribunaux coutumiers) established by the French Protectorate of Morocco and serving rural Berber communities for two decades, from around 1930 to 1956. It examines the ways in which both French and North African scribes and officers encoded court proceedings primarily in French, as per policy, but used transliterated Tashelḥit Berber terms for uniquely Berber legal institutions, concepts, and deed types, as well as items of material culture. This examination of the use and effects of the entextualization of otherwise oral Berber language and law into writing, focusing on five customary courts of the eastern Anti-Atlas Mountains, suggests that the widespread practice of using Berber in Protectorate documents both reflected oral interactions in the courts and furthered French Native Policy goals. The latter primarily encouraged the promulgation of Berber custom over Islamic law, and framed custom as distinct from Islamic law despite evidence of a more fluid legal pluralism long in place. Nonetheless, the result was a set of legal registers that were incomprehensible to French officials other than those familiar with Tashelḥit Berber language and Berber customary legal concepts.
Faire et défaire les liens familiaux : Usages et pratiques du droit en contexte migratoire. Sous la direction d’A. Fillot-Chabaut et L. Odasso (Presses universitaires de Rennes), 2020
Filiation and the Protection of Parentless Children: Towards a Social Definition of the Family in Muslim Jurisdictions, 2019
This chapter considers laws and social realities determining the status of the Moroccan child bor... more This chapter considers laws and social realities determining the status of the Moroccan child born inside or outside of marriage. It considers first, the legal grounds for filiation and second, the legal framework for guardianship of parentless (abandoned or orphaned) children. In both the legal and social approaches to these two issues, there are several constants over time, especially the strong – but not absolute – influence of Maliki jurisprudence. Proposed reforms in the deeply conservative fields of family and guardianship laws indicate that judges are not only considering the 2011 Moroccan Constitution, the 2004 Family Code (Moudawana) and the 2002 kafala (guardianship) law, but also the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its concept of the best interests of the child. I argue that in regards to kafala guardianships, which are handled under contract law rather than family law in Morocco, the state occupies an ambivalent position, mandating replacement care at the level expected of biological parents while denying the child the rights and responsibilities of biological children. Recent cases in the Moroccan courts question longstanding conservative approaches to gender as well as family, raising the possibility of female-headed families (not only households) by issuing family booklets to women, and increasing calls to recognize biological paternity as entailing responsibilities otherwise only expected of fathers with paternal filiation through marriage.
Keywords Morocco Adoption Family Family law Islamic guardianship Private international law
Anthropologies et Sociétés, 2015
Les Justices de l’Invisible, 2013
Forced Migration Review, Jun 2012
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Jan 1, 2010
Berbers and Others: Beyond Tribe and Nation in …, Jan 1, 2010
2 Internal Fractures in the Berber-Arab Distinction: From Colonial Practice to Post-National Preo... more 2 Internal Fractures in the Berber-Arab Distinction: From Colonial Practice to Post-National Preoccupations Katherine E. Hoffman In his classic 1967 book, The Structure of Traditional Moroccan Society, Bernard Hoffman was reluctant to argue that there are distinct Berber and Arab ...
The Journal of North African Studies, Jan 1, 2009
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Jan 1, 2008
Language & communication, Jan 1, 2006
American ethnologist, Jan 1, 2002
Ethnomusicology, Jan 1, 2002
The Journal of North African Studies, Jan 1, 2000
The Arab-Islamic World: …, Jan 1, 2000
Anthropologie et Sociétés, 2015
Au Maroc, les tribunaux demeurent le Saint Graal des militants amazighs qui souhaitent la légitim... more Au Maroc, les tribunaux demeurent le Saint Graal des militants amazighs qui souhaitent la légitimation institutionnelle du tamazight (langue berbère ou langue amazighe) et cherchent à mettre fin aux discriminations linguistiques et à la domination arabe dans les administrations. Les pratiques juridiques en langue vernaculaire tamazight ne sont régies par aucune politique étatique officielle, et c’est plutôt la langue arabe qui domine les affaires judiciaires. Pourtant, comme je le soutiens dans le présent article, l’ « État » emploie des individus, en particulier des juges et des officiers d’état civil, dont certains utilisent des variétés régionales de tamazight dans le cadre de leur travail, notamment pour enregistrer les mariages dans le cadre de tribunaux coutumiers ambulants, procédures qui ont fait l’objet de mes enquêtes sur le terrain et d’entrevues. Les pratiques et les idéologies langagières des juges méritent l’attention de quiconque souhaite étudier l’économie de la lang...
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Jun 1, 2004
Hespéris-Tamuda, 2021
For the ethnographer of the Maghreb interested in studying history so as to better understand the... more For the ethnographer of the Maghreb interested in studying history so as to better understand the present, a foray into the archives has become almost a rite of passage. Whereas collecting oral histories from elderly interlocutors in the field used to provide the desired testimony to change over time, anthropological critiques of narrative and memory as inherently shaped by present concerns have turned anthropologists towards paper texts produced in the past. Critiques from within anthropology as to the ethics of participant observation have fueled skepticism towards the field research endeavor, with archives appearing to provide a field “site” that avoids the problems of researcher positionality. Yet, once immersed in the archives, the ethnographer finds that the seeming certainty of historical texts is an illusion. I argue that Amazigh (Berber) women figure centrally in both Protectorate and tribal preoccupations only when the scribe worked in a format that required him to document womenʼs testimonies in verbatim or summarized procès-verbal from direct contact with women, as in customary court daybooks. In contrast, womenʼs participation in legal and political life is largely absent in Protectorate policy correspondence and tribal reports. Court daybooks provide a glimpse into the ways Anti-Atlas Mountain women, as well as men, navigated legal pluralism between local forms of Berber custom and Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence). I demonstrate how the researcher’s understanding of women’s lives and their roles in political (tribal, central state) and legal affairs differs radically depending on the sources consulted.
Hespéris-Tamuda, 2020
This article examines the multiple languages and legal codes used in the Berber customary courts ... more This article examines the multiple languages and legal codes used in the Berber customary courts (tribunaux coutumiers) established by the French Protectorate of Morocco and serving rural Berber communities for two decades, from around 1930 to 1956. It examines the ways in which both French and North African scribes and officers encoded court proceedings primarily in French, as per policy, but used transliterated Tashelḥit Berber terms for uniquely Berber legal institutions, concepts, and deed types, as well as items of material culture. This examination of the use and effects of the entextualization of otherwise oral Berber language and law into writing, focusing on five customary courts of the eastern Anti-Atlas Mountains, suggests that the widespread practice of using Berber in Protectorate documents both reflected oral interactions in the courts and furthered French Native Policy goals. The latter primarily encouraged the promulgation of Berber custom over Islamic law, and framed custom as distinct from Islamic law despite evidence of a more fluid legal pluralism long in place. Nonetheless, the result was a set of legal registers that were incomprehensible to French officials other than those familiar with Tashelḥit Berber language and Berber customary legal concepts.
Faire et défaire les liens familiaux : Usages et pratiques du droit en contexte migratoire. Sous la direction d’A. Fillot-Chabaut et L. Odasso (Presses universitaires de Rennes), 2020
Filiation and the Protection of Parentless Children: Towards a Social Definition of the Family in Muslim Jurisdictions, 2019
This chapter considers laws and social realities determining the status of the Moroccan child bor... more This chapter considers laws and social realities determining the status of the Moroccan child born inside or outside of marriage. It considers first, the legal grounds for filiation and second, the legal framework for guardianship of parentless (abandoned or orphaned) children. In both the legal and social approaches to these two issues, there are several constants over time, especially the strong – but not absolute – influence of Maliki jurisprudence. Proposed reforms in the deeply conservative fields of family and guardianship laws indicate that judges are not only considering the 2011 Moroccan Constitution, the 2004 Family Code (Moudawana) and the 2002 kafala (guardianship) law, but also the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its concept of the best interests of the child. I argue that in regards to kafala guardianships, which are handled under contract law rather than family law in Morocco, the state occupies an ambivalent position, mandating replacement care at the level expected of biological parents while denying the child the rights and responsibilities of biological children. Recent cases in the Moroccan courts question longstanding conservative approaches to gender as well as family, raising the possibility of female-headed families (not only households) by issuing family booklets to women, and increasing calls to recognize biological paternity as entailing responsibilities otherwise only expected of fathers with paternal filiation through marriage.
Keywords Morocco Adoption Family Family law Islamic guardianship Private international law
Anthropologies et Sociétés, 2015
Les Justices de l’Invisible, 2013
Forced Migration Review, Jun 2012
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Jan 1, 2010
Berbers and Others: Beyond Tribe and Nation in …, Jan 1, 2010
2 Internal Fractures in the Berber-Arab Distinction: From Colonial Practice to Post-National Preo... more 2 Internal Fractures in the Berber-Arab Distinction: From Colonial Practice to Post-National Preoccupations Katherine E. Hoffman In his classic 1967 book, The Structure of Traditional Moroccan Society, Bernard Hoffman was reluctant to argue that there are distinct Berber and Arab ...
The Journal of North African Studies, Jan 1, 2009
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Jan 1, 2008
Language & communication, Jan 1, 2006
American ethnologist, Jan 1, 2002
Ethnomusicology, Jan 1, 2002
The Journal of North African Studies, Jan 1, 2000
The Arab-Islamic World: …, Jan 1, 2000
Full text available on Google Books Abstract: Berbers and Others offers fresh perspectives on... more Full text available on Google Books
Abstract:
Berbers and Others offers fresh perspectives on new forms of social and political activism in today's Maghrib. In recent years, the Amazigh (Berber) movement has become a focus of widespread political, social, and cultural attention in North Africa, Europe, and the United States. Berber groups have peacefully yet persistently laid claim to ownership over broad areas of creativity in the arts, politics, literature, education, and national memory. The contributors to this volume present some of the best new thinking in the emerging field of Berber studies, offering insight into historical antecedents, language usage, land rights, household economies, artistic production, and human rights. The scope, depth, and multidisciplinary approach will engage specialists on the Maghrib as well as students of ethnicity and history.
American Ethnologist, 2012
International Journal of Middle East Studies
Journal article by Katherine E. Hoffman; …, Jan 1, 2004
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Jan 1, 2002
Page 1. Reviews 391 ecy, community, hegemony, and leadership. He builds his case carefully for hi... more Page 1. Reviews 391 ecy, community, hegemony, and leadership. He builds his case carefully for his traditional-critical approach to the sources of Islamic origins, and, more important in terms of the thrust of the book, I think, for ...
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Jan 1, 2000