CFP Session M17. Legal Pluralism in European and Colonial Cities, 1600–1940
Keywords:
Colonial cities, European cities, justice, legal pluralism
Legal pluralism is usually understood in correlation with colonization and the imposition of a European judicial system over the existent, indigenous legal tradition. The definition of legal pluralism is however more complex and has been described recently as ‘a formation of historically occurring patterns of jurisdictional complexity and conflict’ (Benton and Ross, 2013). As such, legal pluralism is not confined to the Empires: legal pluralism existed also in continental Europe, especially in the cities, where men and women could use different courts to settle their grief. The European states and the cities in particular were built upon different legal traditions, combining local, royal, ecclesiastical and seigniorial jurisdictions (Ross and Stern, 2013), which could often legislate over the same issues. This session seeks to highlight the agency of complainants and defendants and the opportunities at hand for the population in European and colonial cities to use different legal systems to reach an agreement. Access and uses of justice is often associated with political and socio-economic elites, but this session is particularly interested in comparing the agency of various groups, including elites, middle classes, slaves, indigenous population, and women. In addition, it aims to reveal processes of globalization of justice by comparing access to and uses of justice in European cities and colonial cities.
Papers on the following subjects are particularly welcome: – How could complainants and defendants use legal pluralism to their advantage? – What was the role of local dignitaries in encouraging or preventing legal pluralism? – How did legal pluralism reinforce the colonial urban project? – How did the transition between customary laws and penal code occur? – How and in what ways were European legal systems in cities transferred to colonial cities?
The large time and geographical spans of this session encourage historians, geographers and criminologists to participate in order to draw a comparative perspective on this subject. Papers are to be submitted on https://eauh2016.net/ before October 31.
Period:
Early Modern, Modern
Session organisers:
Marion Pluskota, Leiden University, The Netherlands, m.pluskota@hum.leidenuniv.nl Manon van der Heijden, Leiden University; Griet Vermeesch, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium.