Lived experiences of the law in colonial Sri Lanka.
Dutch and Sinhalese law coexisted in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Sri Lanka. A dual forum called the Landraad empowered colonial justices to defer to either imperial or indigenous law on issues ranging from standards of evidence to inheritance rights. So, while major judicial decisions were often skewed toward assimilation, everyday life in the colony was marked by a cultural multiplicity. In Navigating Pluralities, Nadeera Rupesinghe focuses on these day-to-day experiences of the law in colonial Sri Lanka, discovering how such plural practices affected both colonized and colonizers in surprising ways.
- Cover
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Usage
- Glossary
- Maps
- Introduction: Conjecture and Deliberation
- Chapter 1: Building the Landraad
- Chapter 2: Divided Authority
- Chapter 3: Facing the Law
- Chapter 4: Marshalling Unseen Forces
- Chapter 5: Defining Land Rights
- Chapter 6: On Inheriting Land
- Conclusion: Revisiting Colonial Legal Practice
- Appendix 1: European Members at the Galle Landraad 1759–96
- Appendix 2: Rulers of Kandy and Dutch Governors
- Appendix 3: List of Accommodessan Grants
- Bibliography
- Index
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
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