Women's worlds, siblings in dispute over inheritance: A view from Botswana

The relationship between women, language, and law in the context of two inheritance disputes that took place in the village of Molepolole, in Botswana, southern Africa,(1) features siblings jockeying for control over their deceased parents' property under customary law. Two cases have been selected because they illustrate (a) how claims are processed within a given framework where the terms of reference are set and both parties proceed on the basis of a common set of understandings, and (b) how claims may be processed where one party challenges the given framework by shifting the terms of reference, thereby creating possibilities for change and new forms of discourse. In both cases, the women find themselves operating within a gendered environment where men generally have better access to resources than women. Irrespective of their position within social networks, women are still faced with negotiating their status and rights to property in terms of deeply embedded conceptions of family and the women's role therein. It is that which frames the ways in which their claims to property are acknowledged and received.