“The Problem is the Law and Women's Rights…” A Study of Marriage Practices in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

In this article, I explore gender justice in relation to the sociolegal status of marriage practices and how women address marital disputes. My research is based on 9 months of immersive fieldwork in Uvira, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The eastern DRC has experienced extensive interventions to prosecute sexual violence and advance women's rights. However, these interventions have tended to miss the complexity of gender dynamics and how rights and justice are understood and sought by women in their everyday lives. I argue that gender justice is a process rather than an end goal and that legal pluralism, and its hybrid manifestations, is a space where that process can unfold. Through prioritizing women's experiences of marriage and separation, I contribute to the scholarship that challenges simple narratives of gendered harms in “othered” contexts and highlight the flexible space of legal pluralism to develop dialogue, ideas, and practices of contextualized gender justice.