Brenda Kombo

In Cameroon, a former French colony, the Napoleonic Code, instituted in the early colonial period, maintains an influence it has lost in France. It continues to play an important role in regulating family life. Ms. Kombo will explore this role by conducting research on how French colonial legal discourse and practice delimited conceptual space shaping responses to domestic violence in Cameroon. This research is part of a larger project in which Ms. Kombo analyzes how changes in the Cameroonian legal system combined with transnational human rights discourse have created new forms of knowledge and power.