Gender, Property and Politics in the Pacific

Legal scholars, economists, and international development practitioners often assume that the state is capable of 'securing' rights to land and addressing gender inequality in land tenure. In this innovative study of land tenure in Solomon Islands, Rebecca Monson challenges these assumptions. Monson demonstrates that territorial disputes have given rise to a legal system characterised by state law, custom, and Christianity, and that the legal construction and regulation of property has, in fact, deepened gender inequalities and other forms of social difference. These processes have concentrated formal land control in the hands of a small number of men leaders, and reproduced the state as a hypermasculine domain, with significant implications for public authority, political participation, and state formation. Drawing insights from legal scholarship and political ecology in particular, this book offers a significant study of gender and legal pluralism in the Pacific, illuminating ongoing global debates about gender inequality, land tenure, ethnoterritorial struggles and the post colonial state.

Rebecca Monson is Associate Professor at the Australian National University College of Law. She has combined research and practice in the fields of gender inequality, justice systems and resource governance for over fifteen years, with a particular focus on Australia and the Pacific Islands region. She has held several Australian Research Council grants to examine legal systems in the Pacific, and regularly provides advice to aid donors, government agencies, and international organisations.