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Resisting the Rule of Law in Nineteenth-Century Ceylon - Colonialism and the Negotiation of Bureaucratic Boundaries (Paperback)
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Resisting the Rule of Law in Nineteenth-Century Ceylon - Colonialism and the Negotiation of Bureaucratic Boundaries (Paperback)
Series: Routledge Research in Historical Geography
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This book offers in-depth insights on the struggles implementing
the rule of law in nineteenth century Ceylon, introduced into the
colonies by the British as their "greatest gift." The book argues
that resistance can be understood as a form of negotiation to
lessen oppressive colonial conditions, and that the cumulative
impact caused continual adjustments to the criminal justice system,
weighing it down and distorting it. The tactical use of rule of law
is explored within the three bureaucracies: the police, the courts
and the prisons. Policing was often "governed at a distance" due to
fiscal constraints and economic priorities and the enforcement of
law was often delegated to underpaid Ceylonese. Spaces of
resistance opened up as Ceylon was largely left to manage its own
affairs. Villagers, minor officials, as well as senior British
government officials, alternately used or subverted the rule of law
to achieve their own goals. In the courts, the imported system
lacked political legitimacy and consequently the Ceylonese
undermined it by embracing it with false cases and information, in
the interests of achieving justice as they saw it. In the prisons,
administrators developed numerous biopolitical techniques and
medical experiments in order to punish prisoners' bodies to their
absolute lawful limit. This limit was one which prison officials,
prisoners, and doctors negotiated continuously over the decades.
The book argues that the struggles around rule of law can best be
understood not in terms of a dualism of bureaucrats versus the
public, but rather as a set of shifting alliances across permeable
bureaucratic boundaries. It offers innovative perspectives,
comparing the Ceylonese experiences to those of Britain and India,
and where appropriate to other European colonies. This book will
appeal to those interested in law, history, postcolonial studies,
cultural studies, cultural and political geography.
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