Page 4 - LAPA Test

Yüksel Sezgin, CONDUCTING RESEARCH IN GHANA
As part of a forthcoming book project that deals with regulation of Islamic family law, this past summer I have conducted eld research in Ghana where I have interviewed judges, lawyers, litigants, and religious leaders from various communities. My recent visit to Ghana has been very productive and rewarding. In fact, I have also made a serendipitous discovery. According to Ghanaian law, Muslim marriages need to be o ciated by licensed imams to be recognized by the state as o cial marriages. It has long been reported in the literature that in recent decades Muslims have not been able to conduct o cial shari‘a marriages because there were no longer any “licensed imams” in the country as the government has reportedly stopped licensing imams. However, during my eld research, I met with an imam who was licensed by the President of Ghana (while he was the A orney General).
I took his pictures with my phone, he also gave me a copy of his imam license and copies of marriage certi cates that he has o ciated. Later when I mentioned during my meetings with o cials from the Ministry of Justice that I had met with a licensed imam, some o cials became very surprised and excited as if I had discovered an extinct species. They asked me to share with them the contact information of the imam. As an outside observer it was very interesting to observe in person the level of disconnect between the o cials in the center and those in the periphery. If I had “discovered” the imam in the countryside or in distant provinces this would have been perhaps more understandable, but the imam whom I “found” was si ing in his o ce in the slums of the capital Accra-about thirty minutes ride to the Ministry. In any case, my recent trip to Ghana has been very educational for both me and the Ministry of Justice o cials.
New LAPA O ces–Wallace Hall
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Sheik Shuaib Ababakar
Celeste Arrington, RESEARCHING LEGAL ACTIVISM IN JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA
While a fellow at LAPA, I am writing a book that examines how lawyers and legal activism a ect policymaking processes in Japan and South Korea. I focus on policies related to persons with disabilities, tobacco control, and asbestos regulation and compensation. My research leverages Japan and Korea’s multiple similarities to analyze how lawyers organize, fund, and execute legal activism; how litigation ts with conventional tactics like lobbying or protest; and how each country’s legal profession has shaped pa erns of political participation. Other ongoing projects of mine explore the “radiating e ects” of litigation over wartime claims against Japan or Japanese rms, the resilient and nationally-speci c structures of activist lawyers’ networks, and the way procedural rules in court shape collective action outside the courtroom. Together these research projects aim to shed light on cross-national variations in how political processes are becoming legalized or judicialized.
Over the past three years I have interviewed dozens of lawyers, activists, plainti s, and others in Korean and Japanese. While explaining how they interact with law and legal processes to me, they also shared inspiring stories of overcoming marginalization or injustice. I recently completed a eld research trip to Seoul which brought the luxury of democratic political participation into sharper relief than usual. On the day that the North launched an intermediate range ballistic missile over Japan, my interviews focused on the South’s disability rights movements and their victories in claiming high- level social rights and inclusion in ways that had been unimaginable three decades ago in South Korea.