People’s quest for justice today and the role of courts in pre- and early-colonial northern Nigeria
The essay, written originally in northern Nigeria during the “shari’a crisis” ca. 2000, focuses on how persistent has been the “quest for justice” there over recent centuries – whether it is ‘traditional’ justice or Muslim justice or modern ‘secular’ systems of justice. Justice has a deeply rooted priority in Hausa Islamic culture: Allah is ‘just’, Judgment Day is ‘real’ and coming soon to us all. Colonial rule ca. 1910 extended the Qadi-court system, moving the handling of disputes from local rulers to a wider, bureaucratic profession of qadis; the number of cases (especially over marriage) shot up with the end of slavery. By the late 1950s and early 1960s the judicial system was becoming party-political, while today (2000 – 2015) it is widely recognised that judicial decisions have become more commercialised than ever before. In this context, then, the initial re-introduction of ‘full shari’a’ was considered feasible (and politically astute) because of the popular hopes invested in it and the enormous enthusiasm generated for it at the grass-roots of northern society.

Development politics and heritage commodification in Red Location, South Africa.
Based on a review of the Red Location Museum and Cultural Precinct project in Red Location, Port Elizabeth, this paper questions the ambiguous relationship between heritage-making projects and development policies. Analysing project descriptions and presentations by its promoters, as well as the protests of Red Location inhabitants, this paper shows how this ambiguity is caused by the adoption of a neoliberal conception of development, which combines both state involvement and state retreat. As a form of state involvement, the project embodies the government commitment to constructing a post-apartheid city and a national community; as a form of state retreat, the project delegates the task of fi nding a solution to socio-economic problems to tourism and cultural/heritage activities. Ultimately, as a neoliberal tool, the project seeks to promote equality among citizens while silencing all redistribution discourses.

Le pèlerinage sur les lieux saints de l’Irak en images.
L’Arbain est un pèlerinage qui célèbre le quarantième jour de la mort de l’imam Hossein, sur les lieux saints d’Irak, et rassemble chaque année quelque 20 millions de pèlerins chiites, dont deux millions d’Iraniens en 2016. Son enjeu économique et stratégique est notable. Une pluralité d’acteurs de la République islamique, les uns publics, les autres privés, les uns politiques, les autres religieux, sont partie prenante de ce qui est devenu une forme de tourisme de masse et de proximité, par rapport au hadj ou aux séjours, difficiles et coûteux, dans le monde occidental. Se développe ainsi un savoir-faire pratique et économique du voyage. Il s’ensuit une multitude de connexions entre les pèlerins iraniens, parfois issus de la diaspora, et la société irakienne. Par ailleurs, les lieux saints d’Irak voient se déployer l’iconographie nationale et révolutionnaire iranienne autour de la figure centrale de l’imam Hossein. L’Arbain est une figure imaginaire, qui repose sur l’indiscernabilité du réel et de l’irréel, au point de rencontre de la foi, du politique et de la réalisation de soi, et qui est devenue une source de déstabilisation potentielle, à côté des protestations populaires.