Suchergebnisse

Building on ethnographic fieldwork in Belgian welfare bureaucracies, this article explores the place of emotions in the administrative treatment of cases—particularly those involving migrants, whose welfare rights are increasingly limited. Welfare offices are responsible for granting social assistance—in the form of medical treatment, material help, or financial benefits—in order to guarantee that those residing in Belgium live in dignified conditions. This article delves into civil servants' emotional engagement, discourses, and relationship to 'the state' and into the way they decide on specific cases based on feelings, administrative guidelines, and instructions from above. It challenges the assumption that street-level bureaucrats' discretion and daily practices often effectively restrict citizens' access to public services and shows instead how emotions, professional ethics and values contribute to assessing deservingness, and to the way civil servants 'do the state' on a daily basis.

AbstractOver the last 10 years, scholars have started to focus on African states' bureaucracies by investigating public servants' relationships with the state, their professional ethos, how they appropriate reforms, and the way they interact with citizens. With inheritance disputes as a focal point, this article highlights the users' perspective—which is often overlooked—and asks how litigants in Cotonou(Benin) see the state, appropriate legal reforms, and use the courts. It shows that citizens, despite a general sense that the court system is corrupt and ineffective, continue to use it because state institutions convey a form of authority that allows them either to legitimize or challenge family decisions in inheritance matters.

In Belgium, depending on their immigration status, foreigners may be entitled to different forms of social assistance, ranging from emergency medical care to financial benefits. In a context where residence permits are constantly updated, re-examined or withdrawn by the administration, this article explores the ways in which welfare bureaucrats deal with irregular migrants. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at welfare offices in French-speaking Belgium, this article shows that documentary practices in welfare bureaucracies have the effect of both restricting access to social assistance and aiding irregular migrants in bringing cases against the administration. This article thus also delves into the double-edged relationship of the social workers to the state by focusing on the competing norms and interpretations of law they encounter on a daily basis.

En 2004, le Bénin adopte un Code des personnes et de la famille, destiné à mettre fin au dualisme juridique en droit privé et à l'application du droit « traditionnel », jugé discriminatoire. Avec pour élément phare la notion d'égalité, le nouveau Code est souvent décrit comme le « Code des femmes » par les citoyens ordinaires et par les professionnels du droit de Cotonou. D'où vient cette réputation ? En détaillant le contexte de son adoption ainsi que la manière dont le nouveau texte a été présenté aux citoyen·ne·s, cet article permettra tout d'abord de mieux comprendre la manière dont il est perçu. Avec les litiges de succession comme étude de cas, il s'intéressera à celles et ceux qui l'utilisent, à l'usage qu'ils en font et aux conséquences sur les rapports de genre, les relations familiales et l'accès aux biens communs à Cotonou.

La question des professionnels du droit sur le continent africain, et plus particulièrement des avocats, est rarement abordée par les chercheurs en sciences sociales. S'inspirant de l'ethnographie des administrations publiques en Afrique, de la sociologie des professions et de la socio-anthropologie du droit anglo-saxonne, cet article propose d'aborder le parcours professionnel et les pratiques des avocats de Cotonou. Sur la base d'entretiens biographiques et d'observations, il analyse la manière dont le barreau s'est construit, l'influence des réformes de la justice et des politiques d'accès à la profession sur le statut social des avocats et leurs relations avec leurs clients au quotidien. Ces éléments permettront de réfléchir au rôle des professions libérales dans le fonctionnement des services publics en Afrique, aux logiques qui sous-tendent leurs relations avec les usagers et à leurs conséquences sur la manière dont la justice est non seulement perçue, mais aussi « produite » au quotidien.

Ces dernières années, le nombre de conflits d'héritage gérés par le tribunal de première instance de Cotonou a considérablement augmenté. Pourtant, même lorsqu'une décision est rendue, peu de familles exécutent le jugement. Partant de ce constat, cet article vise à comprendre la manière dont les héritiers comprennent et utilisent le droit dans la capitale béninoise. La justice y est mobilisée pour agir sur les hiérarchies familiales et l'accès aux ressources – un objectif qui ne nécessite pas toujours de respecter la décision du juge. Dans le prolongement des récentes réflexions sur la place du droit sur le continent africain, cette contribution s'intéressera aux citoyens ordinaires et à la manière dont ils s'approprient la loi.

Since 2012, Beninese magistrates have gone on multiple strikes. Most of them complain about their substantial workload, low pay, and poor working conditions. They also highlight the discrepancies between magistrates' social status and what their families expect from them. However, judges and prosecutors also insist on the importance of their work and on the ethics that goes together with it. This paper analyses the discourses and representations of the social and professional status of Beninese judges, showing that they are contingent upon gender, political and economic contexts. It delves into the magistrate's changing relationship to the state, as well as into their professional identities and daily practices. ; Peer reviewed

"To better understand migration governance and the concrete, daily practices of civil servants tasked with enforcing state laws and policies, it is important to focus on documents, which are core artefacts of bureaucratic work. These can include certificates, letters, reports, case files, decisions, internal guidelines and judgements, in both digital and paper form. Based on ethnographic studies in various geographical and bureaucratic contexts, this collection shows how civil servants produce statehood, restrict migrants' movements and engage with migrants' strategies to make themselves legible. It contributes to the study of the state as documentary practice and highlights the role of paperwork as a powerful practice of migration control"--