NUMBER 44 / 1999

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Marina d’ENGELBRONNER-KOLFF, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, finished her doctoraal-degree in law (the Dutch equivalent of the LL.M.) with a specialisation in international law and human rights at the State University of Utrecht in 1991. She lectured in public international law at the University of Zimbabwe from 1992 to 1994, and conducted research on Human Rights Education in Zimbabwe during the period 1993-1995: From 1995 until mid- 1999, she was employed as a senior researcher with the Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS) Legal Department, which is affiliated to the Faculty of Law, University of Namibia. She coordinated the legal-anthropological research project ‘Conflict Management in the interface between Customary Law and the Constitutional State: the case of Namibia’, funded by the Volkswagen St Germany, and lectured on customary law and research methodology. She is currently completing her Ph.D. thesis on Legal Pluralism and Dispute Resolution Processes within the Sambyu Community of Namibia, for the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her publications include: (as co-editor with P. Nherere) The institutionalisation of Human Rights in Southern Africa (Proceedings of the Workshop on the Institutionalisation of Human Rights in Southern Africa, October 1992, Harare), Oslo: Nordic Human Rights Publications (1993), to which she contributed ‘The problems of illiteracy and underdevelopment in human rights awareness’; ‘Justice in a legally pluralistic society: a court tale from Sambyu’, in Human Rights and Democracy (Proceedings of the Regional Conference on Human Rights in Southern Africa, March 1996), Windhoek: New Namibia Books; The Provision of Non-Formal Education for Human Rights in Zimbabwe, Harare: SAPES Trust (1998); and (as co-editor with M.O. Hinz and J.L. Sindano) Traditional Authority and Democracy in Southern Africa (Proceedings of the Workshop on Traditional Authorities in the Nineties, November 1995), Windhoek: New Namibia Books, (1998), to which she contributed ‘The people as law makers: the juridical foundation of the legislative power of Namibian traditional communities’.

Larry GOULD was born in Berkeley, California, USA. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice from Louisiana State University in 1981, a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice from Louisiana State University in 1986, and a Doctorate in Sociology with emphases on Experimental Statistics and Criminal Justice from Louisiana State University in 1991. He served for 15 years as a police officer in Louisiana. He is currently the Associate Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Northern Arizona University where he holds the tenured rank of Associate Professor. His recent publications include: (editor) “Native Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Issues of Self-Determination” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 14 (1) (1998); (with Marie Votbrecht) “Personality differences between women police recruits, their male counterparts and the general female population” Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology (1999); and “Teaching cultural diversity” and “The white male experience in America” both in Marianne Nielsen and Barbara Perry (eds.), Investigating D Human and Cultural Relations in Criminal Justice. Allyn and Bacon Publishers: New York. Most of Dr Gould’s research interests focus on the adaptation of police officers to their environment and the impact of the policing environment on the police officer. He is continuing his work with the Navajo Nation Police as a project evaluator on a Federally funded community oriented policing project.

Manfred 0. HINZ is Professor of Law at the University of Namibia. For a biography, see the Journal of Legal Pluralism, nr. 39.

Marianne 0. NIELSEN was born in Odense Denmark, and received her doctorate in Sociology (with a Specialization in Criminology) at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada in 1993. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. She is the co-editor with Robert A. Silverman of: Native Americans, Crime, and Justice, Boulder, Colorado: Westview (1996); and Aboriginal Peoples and Canadian Criminal Justice, Toronto: Butterworths (1992). Her work has also appeared in Law and Anthropology, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences (an article written with Lindsay Redpath), Canadian Journal of Ethnic Studies, and as chapters in numerous books. Her current work focuses on the structures, processes, survival and success of Indigenous-operated justice organizations.

Barbara OOMEN works at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law and Administration in Non-Western Countries, Leiden University, The Netherlands. For a biography see the Journal of Legal Pluralism, nr. 40.

Fons STRIJBOSCH is Director of the Institute of Folk Law of the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He carried out field research among the Sasak people of Lombok (Indonesia), in the 1970s, and among a Moluccan (Indonesian) minority in the Netherlands, in the 1980s. Currently he is interested in general matters of legal pluralism in the Netherlands and in the interaction between the Folk Law of minorities (particularly Moluccans) and State Law. Recently he edited (with Marie-Claire Foblets) Cross-Cultural Family Relations, Oñati Papers No. 8, a volume recording the results of a meeting of lawyers and anthropologists engaged in the study of family law in six European countries. He holds a chair in Folk Law and Legal Pluralism, Faculty of Law, University of Nijmegen, and is Executive Secretary of the Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism.

William TORRY is au anthropologist on the faculty of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University. Consultancies he has held at the World Bank, UNDP, World Food Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, Colorado) and other organizations have produced numerous publications on issues such as land tenure rules, subsistence practices, and famine coping mechanisms developed by farmers and nomadic herders located in the western Sudan, southern Ethiopia, and northern Kenya. He is currently pursuing a long- term study of culture, motives and individual responsibility in the law, described in a forthcoming article, “Culture and Individual Responsibility: the Touchstones of a Culture Defense”, in the journal Human Organization.

Melanie G. WIBER is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. She was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, and holds the degrees of B.A. and M.A. in anthropology from the University of Lethbridge, and a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta. She has done fieldwork in the Philippine Uplands, the Canadian Maritime Provinces, and Borneo. Her recent publications include: Politics, Properly and Law in the Philippine Uplands, Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press (1993); (edited with Joep Spiertz) The Role of Law in Natural Resource Management, Recht der Werkelijkheid, Amsterdam: E. Niemeyer (1996); Erect Men/Undulating Women: The Visual Imagery of Gender, Race and Progress in Reconstructive Illustranons of Human Evolution, Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press (1997); and articles in Journal of Anthropological Research, Man, Law and Anthropology, Journal of Legal Pluralism, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, and Visual Anthropology. Her current research interests are: natural resource management, new forms of property, property systems, and gender studies.