1.9.1. Social Science Analytical Approaches: An Actor-Oriented Analysis
Social scientists have been in continuous debate over how one can best comprehend the nature of social life and social organizations in society. These scholars are not in agreement whether individuals are in control of their destinies and actions or they are merely subject to particular social circumstances which determine their behaviors. One group of scholars who dominated sociological and anthropological inquiries during the late 19th and early 20th centuries argued that actions and organizations can mostly be shaped by the constraining forces of social structure rather than individuals’ actions. These social theorists suggested a vision of the world where powerful structures are dominant and responsible for orchestrating the conduct of human individuals (Durkheim, 1938[1895]; Radcliff-Brown 1952; E. Pritchard, 1940s).
Emile Durkheim 1938[1895]:1 0), for instance, in his sociological theory suggests that individuals are subjected to real and external ‘social facts' that constrain and define their behaviors.
He further emphasized that a social event must be recognized by the power of external coercion it exercises over individuals. This theoretical perspective greatly influenced social anthropological studies during the first half of the 20th century, and in particular, the influence has been particularly evident in the ethnographic work pursued by Radcliffe-Brown, Meyer Fortes, and Evans-Pritchard in their analyses of small-scale societies. Thus, these scholars stress that individual action is dependent on a compelling social force and organization beyond human agency.
Others, on the other hand, give much weight to the human agency as a decisive factor that influences the courses of events in the society rather than being merely orchestrated by the external structure. The Durkheimian perspective dominated sociological and anthropological inquiries since the 1960s and later replaced by the Weberian view that gives emphasis to the
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individual actions rather than structure as an important factor in influencing actions and organizations in the social world. The 1960s new theoretical orientation with a grand appellation called Weberian view emphasizes on „human action instead of social structure as the main object of research, focusing on „the analysis of intimate, everyday interactions“ (Sztompka 1994:30).
Since then, the „agency-centric“ perspective came about as a reaction to the „structural emphasis“ of the previously mentioned position. Placing much emphasis on the role of personal efficacy, the human- agency centric suggests that humans can actively decide on the courses of actions they wish to pursue. It is due to the place it gives to human's agency that social scientists became especially interested in the theoretical views of Max Weber. In his exposition of sociological theory and method in 'Economy and Society' (1922), Weber places the focus of social-scientific inquiry on the acting (and active) individual. In particular, he proposes to speak of ‘action’ insofar as the acting individual attaches a subjective meaning to his behavior-be it overt or covert, omission or acquiescence. An action is „social“ insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course (Weber 1978 [1922]:4). In this sense, Weber suggested that sociologists should focus on the „rational, goal-directed activities of individuals” (Gordon 1991:477). In his view, the task of the sociologist is to reveal the rationalizations of the person in any given situation, taking into account the
„interpretive understanding“ (Verstehen) of social actors positioned in various contexts of action.
Additionally, contemporary scholars also criticize structure-centric analysis of social events and organization.
Norman (2001:18,19), for example, disagrees with the structure focused theories as „people-less,“ and obsessed with the conditions, contexts, and driving of social life rather than with the self-organizing practices of those inhabiting, experiencing and transforming the contours and details of the social landscape. He emphasizes further that human agency has the knowledge and capability to decide on and act accordingly even in extreme preventing external environment.
Whereas explaining their behaviour as the result of some external cause does not (von Wright, 1993). Norman (2001) adopts a new perspective called „an actor-oriented perspective that explored how social actors (both ‘local' and ‘external ‘to the particular arena) are locked into a series of intertwined battles over resources, meanings and institutional legitimacy and control“
(Norman 2001: 1). An actor-oriented approach focuses on the exploration of internally generated strategies and processes of change b social actors themselves in their day to day lives.
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It also elucidates the links between the world of actors at the grassroots level and the larger global actors and the critical roles played by diverse and often conflicting forms of human action and social consciousness (ibid.:16). The notion of agency attributes to the individual actors the capacity to process social experience and to devise ways of coping with life challenges. State institutions such as state courts, and community courts, religious organizations, political parties, non-governmental organizations and capitalist enterprises can be exemplified as social groups that have means of reaching and formulating decisions and of acting at least on some of them (ibid.:16).
Thus, from above brief explanation, we can understand that structural analysis gives little rooms for local actors to articulate their views on the local situations and see variations in their organizations. The approach also overshadows the roles of the lived experiences of actors to have little impact at the grassroots level social interactions. An actor-oriented approach, on the other hand, provides better insights into the dynamics and complexity of power relations and lived experiences of the human beings. But I argue that both structure and actor oriented approaches are invariably important perspectives to better understand the socio-legal reality of a given community. It is due to this vantage point that I employed the agency-structure approach to asses’ actors’ interests, beliefs, and the subsequent perceptions as well as strategies dispute settlers have been using to settle disputes. The approach also allowed me to understand the contestations among actors that may arise owing to competition over resources, legitimacy or other factors in the study area.
The approach further helped me to closely understand the networks of relations among social groups, the perceptions and actions they develop among themselves and their counterparts, and the interfaces they develop at the grassroots levels. The social phenomena that are made up of a multiplicity of constructed and new realities which actors develop can effectively be understood if one pays attention to both the structure and the human agency. There are growing works that support looking at both the agency and structure aspects of social life o better grasp the socio-legal aspects of life.
There are some scholars, for instance, presents their views on the structure-agency debate. These contemporary scholars try to reconcile the two versions by expounding that both structure and human agencies are very important to understand social action and organization.
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Anthony Giddens’s (1984) work on „structuration theory“ as well as Pierre Bourdieu's ([1972]1977) work „theory of practice“, for instance, explain that social science researchers should strive to understand both the structural and human agency aspects of the social life.
Giddens, for example, said that a researcher who strives to understand the nature of social life should „analyse“ how the concepts of action, meaning, and subjectivity should be specified and how they might relate to notions of structure and constraint (Giddens 1984:2). He further emphasizes that one should construct a coherent framework with which „structure „and „agency“
can both be grasped in the account of social life and systematically analysed to have a better understanding of the nature of social life.
Recent studies also underline the significances of paying attention to both the structure and the agency dimensions of the social life to understand the on-going socio-political dynamics of African societies. In this regard, Cheeseman (2016:4) insists that informal and traditional forms of personalized networks of leadership which he figured out as a phenomenon known as “neo-patrimonialism“ has become important local leadership system which influences social realities in the contemporary Africa. This is due to, among other factors, the African states' failure "to maintain their sovereignty“ (Santos de Sousa 2006:36).
Cheeseman indicates that Africa's international relationship and the engagement of external powers like China has demanded, on the other hand, the growing significance of "formal political institutions“ (Cheeseman 2016:4) to understand the social realities apart from the agency of Africa's people per say its local actors. Thus, giving due attention to both the structure and actors' agency has become an important sociological perspective to grasp the complex socio-legal natures of African people.
On this vantage point, let me shed some lights on how agency-structure perspective can play an important role for exploring legal pluralism among the Siltie people. The historical trajectories of legal pluralism in Ethiopia in general and the Siltie in particular indicate that the existence, operations, as well as functions of legal systems are closely linked with the various political systems the country has passed through. Studies indicate that Ethiopia's legal systems have greatly been influenced by the external coercive powers and social pressures as well as the structures that are unfolding in the country (Barnes 2001: 344; Alula and Getachew 2008: 4).
There were and are also conflicts between the core and the periphery demanding to maintain
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their local system of administrations (Markakis, 2011). Authors like Alula and Getachew (2008) and Markakis (2011) reported that the core had imposed the alien legal system over the local community with fierce resistance from below. In these circumstances, the local actors devise various strategies like abstaining from government meetings, and development campaigns to maintain their local power (Scott, 1985). As an indicative to the resistance to the state interventions, local actors tried to change the course of events and influence the intentions of the structure into their advantages. Actors agency has further been empowered partly due to the declining of the legitimacy of the state systems vis a vis local actors’ ability to appeal to the community as an alternative and even dominant local legal agent in delivering justice at the grassroots level (Alula and Getachew, 2008). They employ their lived experiences, abilities, social capitals, and local knowledge to mobilize the local community and generate local power.
To recap, from the above theoretical explanations one can understand that social actions continuously evolve and lead to the creation of values, norms and of course various social institutions through the process of social changes via the interactions of structures and agency. In addition, both structure and human agency have been active in influencing the nature of the social lives of the Siltie. Therefore, the agency-structure approaches have helped me understand the lived experiences of the actors and explore the interactions and competitions among the legal systems through the perspectives of local actors and members of the institutions.
1.9.2. Legal Pluralist Analytical Approaches
Anthropologists used legal anthropological approaches for understanding the various legal systems operating in different parts of the world. As a student of anthropology, my analysis is mainly related to Woodman's ideas of „deep legal pluralism“ as an anthropological perspective.
Woodman's conception of deep legal pluralism gives me an opportunity to see the world from the actors' perspectives (Woodman, 1996). On the other hand, a ‘’juristic view of legal pluralism“ or „state legal pluralism“ (Merry, 1988) has sometimes been said not to be a form of legal pluralism which can be of interest to social science“ (Woodman 1996:158). Griffiths Jhon (1986) insists further that the juristic definition of law is not comprehensive enough to show the dynamics of state-society relations. He further underscores that below, outside, and all around the state are other forms, ‘systems,' and social worlds over which the state neither exercised complete control nor had the ability to eradicate it.
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Thus, legal centralist approach could not pay attention to this socio-cultural domain where the state has little control. Woodman's deep legal pluralism concepts, however, extend the concept of
„law“ to include non-state modes of social ordering. Since the Siltie's plural legal setting embraces state, the religious and customary dispute settlement institutions that co-operate and contend on various cases, I adopted the legal anthropology approach to analyse the interactions of the legal systems among the Siltie. In addition, the legal anthropology approach also allowed me to understand the daily activities of the local community and their interactions with the co-existing legal systems in the area. Nowadays, legal anthropologists have placed more emphasis on the process by which disputes are settled, rather than on the substance of the law that emerges from legal decisions.
The studies adopt a transactional perspective looking into the strategies actors employ to manage disputes and the choices they make between alternative modes of dispute settlement. This has been referred to as „forum shopping and shopping forums“ (Keebet Von Benda-Beckman 1981, Merry 1979). Others further stress that social research should focus on the activities of individuals rather than the law (or how the courts have interpreted the law) to have a good understanding of a given society's internal and external social interaction. Thus, law itself may have little significance in the understanding of how a community resolves its disputes compared to the social norms or the religious values its people attach to it.
This analysis agrees with Georg Simmel's assertion that "…society is made up of the interactions between and among individuals, and the sociologist should study the patterns and forms of these associations, rather than quest after social laws“ (Farganis 1993: 13 cited in Borszik, 2016).
Nevertheless, the local community also employs state law to champion their rights in the various courts, mainly customary ones. Thus, state law has been used as a "weapon of the weak“ (Scott, 1985), yet it remains relatively less influential over the day to day activities of the local community compared with social norms. In this regard, customary and faith-based courts are playing significant roles in dispute settlements. This is because the sheiks and elders' courts, among other factors, are nearer and more conversant to the grassroots rather than the state. On the other hand, I also employ Clifford Geertz's (1973) interpretive approaches to understand the roles plural legal settings play in dispute settlement in the area. As mentioned above, I employed an actor-oriented approach to understanding the interactions and interfaces as well as changes and continuities of legal pluralism among the Siltie.
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This can be achieved through the following procedures. First, data analysis is an inductive process whereby the data gathered from the informants will be „analyzed inductively building from particulars to general themes, and the researcher making interpretations of the meaning of the data“ (Creswell 2009: 4).Qualitative data analysis is highly intuitive and personal activity.
It is a process where the epistemological assumptions and standpoints of the researcher are revealed (Dawson, 2005; Krauss, 2005). In the whole process of analysis, I edited, classified, coded and tabulated the collected data so as to make sense of them and make them amenable for analysis.
The types of data that have been generated in this study include field notes, recordings, and transcripts. In data analysis, there is a search for patterns of relationship that exist between the data group (Kothari, 2004). To analyze the data, as a qualitative researcher, I did not wait until all of the data have been collected. Analysis of the data is a process which begins as the research progresses and that requires refining and reorganizing the data in light of the emerging results (Lodico et al., 2010). The interviews have been transcribed precisely and then translated into English from Siltie language. Data are analyzed through the reading and reviewing of the collected data to (or „intending to“) identify themes and patterns that come out which then are coded. I have then summarized and explained the results by describing the major ideas, patterns or themes that emerged from the analysis (Lodico et al., 2010). Finally, I reflected on the analyzed data and assessed their implications for the questions in the study.