ABSTRACT
This chapter examines dominant discourses that have shaped popular debates and scholarship on widow inheritance. The term ‘dominant’ is used here to describe discourses that emerge as prominent in the context of my research. In other words, they may not represent hegemonic discourses on this subject. In this chapter, literature that has emerged from anthropology and law, as well as gender and rights is examined. Even though this chapter privileges material that focusses on the use of widow inheritance amongst the Luo of Kenya, it will also draw on analysis from other contexts, given that the interest here is not on the practice itself but in the discursive production of the ‘practice’.
