A notable aspect of Africa’s struggle with its colonial legacies is the co-existence of indigenous laws that emerged in agrarian settings with state laws that emerged in industrial settings. Given the dissonance in their origins, clashes frequently occur between traditionalists and change agents, especially over the property and succession rights of women, girls, and younger male children. Spurred by the judicial handling of these clashes, scholars categorise African customary laws into ‘official’ and ‘living’ versions. However, this categorisation does not account properly for the influence of globalisation on the normative behaviour of Africans. Based on multi-country field research, this article introduces adaptive legal pluralism as the framework for managing the co-existence of indigenous laws and state laws in sub-Saharan Africa. By explaining the influence of globalisation on the behaviour of people subject to indigenous laws, the article draws attention to the imitative character of normative interaction in this region. It presents adaptive legal pluralism as not only a crystal bowl for charting the future of indigenous family laws, but also the theoretical pathway to integrated state and indigenous laws.

中文翻译：

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法律多元化与非洲个人家庭法的未来

非洲与其殖民遗产斗争的一个显着方面是在农业环境中出现的土著法律与在工业环境中出现的国家法律并存。鉴于他们的起源不一致，传统主义者和变革推动者之间经常发生冲突，尤其是在妇女、女孩和年幼男孩的财产和继承权方面。在对这些冲突的司法处理的推动下，学者们将非洲习惯法分为“官方”和“现行”版本。然而，这种分类并没有正确解释全球化对非洲人规范行为的影响。本文基于多国实地研究，引入适应性法律多元化作为管理撒哈拉以南非洲土著法律与国家法律共存的框架。通过解释全球化对受土著法律约束的人们的行为的影响，本文提请注意该地区规范互动的模仿特征。它提出适应性法律多元化不仅是描绘土著家庭法未来的水晶碗，也是整合国家和土著法律的理论途径。