A Focus on Africa
For a number of years, the Institute has placed special focus on countries and regions that hold particular academic interest due to their dynamic development. As head of the Centre of Expertise on Africa, Kwamou Eva Feukeu looks to start a new chapter. What topics has she set out to address?
Law and the Creation of Value
Feukeu's research on informal value creation is grounded in the field of business law: “Over the last 150 years, the economy and legal system in Africa have primarily been geared towards exporting goods to the rest of the world. I am investigating how value is created in Africa and how it is currently protected through state and non-state means. I also aim to find legal solutions that ensure economic output benefits the people who generate it.”
To this day, Africa’s economic landscape remains heavily influenced by the legal systems of the former European colonial powers. This contention applies equally to the 17 West and Central African states that are members of OHADA (Organization for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa). Their aim is to improve the framework conditions for investment through a common regime of business law. Currently, ten uniform laws created by OHADA find cross-border application, governing amongst other issues, commercial and company law, transport law, and the law of arbitration and mediation.
„I aim to find legal solutions that ensure economic
output benefits the people who generate it.“
– Kamou Eva Feukeu –
“However, this body of law applies to only around 10 per cent of Africa’s economy. The remaining 90 per cent falls within the informal sector, for which there is limited state-regulation and social protection,” says Feukeu. Accordingly, she wants to determine what legal instruments are needed to properly capture the actual practices of economic value creation. Ultimately, these practices form the basis of livelihood for most people in Africa, whether in agriculture, crafts, transport, or in the direct sale of goods they have produced themselves. Also encompassed here are innovative start-ups run by young entrepreneurs who operate informally and across national borders.
With this project, Feukeu is pursuing an innovative research approach. She aims to combine private-law analysis with empirical data on value creation in Africa. To this end, she has designed a collaborative platform where academics from various disciplines—both those based in Africa and those living in the diaspora—can meet with African merchants and businesspeople to jointly develop context-sensitive approaches and devise models for reform. The topic of the informal economy is by no means relevant only in Africa, and research into African business law is indeed also being conducted in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The Institute scholar thus sees enormous potential for networking in this area.
Law and Time
The conflict between lived law and formal law is also at the heart of a project on land ownership and land use. The project focuses on the fact that customary law remains firmly anchored in people’s memories and operates in tandem with their experiences with formal law. “The reinterpretation of customary law and its integration into state law have created legal experiences that lie outside the scope of written law and that have become part of our shared legal toolkit,” says Feukeu. “This explains why land law reforms in Africa often fail, as they are either based exclusively on modern statutory law or simply fall back on customary law. Yet lived reality makes both forms of law indispensable.” In Cameroon, for example, there is a great deal of land lying fallow because the owners do not look after it. Often these absentee owners live far away, not infrequently outside the country. Feukeu would like to encourage a re-examination of the topic, particularly with regard to temporary, non-exclusive property rights. “I believe we should rethink land use rights in Africa so that the same plot of land could, for instance, be used as property by different people at different periods of time.”
„My aim is to conceive of law from the perspective of the people.“
– Kamou Eva Feukeu –
The phenomenon whereby elements reminiscent of former colonial and customary law are practised in parallel to both state and non-state laws is one that Feukeu perceives as a resource and has dubbed legal memory banks in her research: “My aim is to conceive of law from the perspective of the people. This legal-cultural understanding of cotemporality could open up new avenues for shaping reforms that are oriented around the law that lives within them.”
The Right to a Future
What happens when global development organizations impose targets on local actors? What do people in marginalized communities understand a good future to mean? Also in her analysis of externally and self-determined visions of the future, Feukeu approaches the inquiry from an interdisciplinary perspective, bringing, in particular, expertise in futures studies derived from previous work at UNESCO, where, amongst other things, she trained families and organizations to critically question the assumptions underlying the concept of ‘development’.
Through dialogue with other academics, futurists, and activists, she first aims to examine three key findings: That alongside the history of a colonized future, there is a long non-colonial tradition of critical reflection on the future; that practices of development and future planning must not arbitrarily presuppose the needs of the people they are intended to serve in order to be considered ethical; and that social research should make use of alternative methods, such as reframing, participatory research, or context-specific visions of the future, if it is to avoid arbitrary assumptions about the needs of those involved.
„It is only when we give individuals the space to develop their own ideas
about a good future that we, as scholars,
can engage in a meaningful dialogue with them.“
– Kamou Eva Feukeu –
She sees the link to legal scholarship in the way legal activities—such as the conclusion of legal transactions and the use of certain legal instruments—are oriented towards the future. She explores what form the law must take to enable people and communities to pursue their own interests and realize their goals for a good future. She attaches great importance to a participatory approach: “It is only when we give individuals the space to develop their own ideas about a good future that we, as scholars, can engage in a meaningful dialogue with them.”
Image:
Portrait Kwamou Feukeu: © Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law / Johanna Detering
