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Alternative Readings: The Status of the Status of Children Act in Antigua and Barbuda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Mindie Lazarus-Black
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More than 80% of the people of Antigua and Barbuda are born out of wedlock. In 1986 Antigua's Parliament passed new family laws to enable men to acknowledge legally their illegitimate children, to prevent discrimination against children whose parents have not wed, and to allow acknowledged children to inherit from their fathers' estates. How is the Status of Children Act, the keystone of the new measures, being interpreted and applied by legal professionals? To what degree can legal proclamations and judicial processes alter people's commonsense understanding of family? To what extent do social norms and everyday practices remake the meaning and practice of law? I explore law's role in the construction of personal and group identity and in relation to gender hierarchy. I find that Antigua's new kinship codes are both emblematic of a distinctly postcolonial kinship order and indicative of new tensions between certain powerful institutions—schools and churches—which previously enjoyed ideological support from the state.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 28 , Issue 5: Symposium: Community and Identity in Sociolegal Studies , 1994 , pp. 993 - 1007
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

The research for this article was made possible by a 1992-93 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for College Teachers and Independent Scholars and by 1992 and 1993 grants from the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lone B. Black carefully transcribed several of the interviews recorded here. I am grateful for her assistance. I also wish to express my gratitude to the people of Antigua and Barbuda for their support of my research, patience, and many, many kindnesses.

A shorter version was presented at the Law and Society Association Meetings in Chicago in May 1993. I thank Bill Black, Wendy Espeland, Susan Hirsch, and Beth Mertz for their comments and insightful suggestions on earlier drafts. I especially thank Leah Feldman for that four-in-the-afternoon rescue.

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Statutes

Births and Deaths (Registration) (Amendment) Act, Law No. 19, Laws of Antigua & Barbuda 1986 (“Births Act”).Google Scholar
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