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.

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.

In this original work James Duncan explores the transformation of Ceylon during the mid-nineteenth century into one of the most important coffee growing regions of the world and investigates the consequent ecological disaster which erased coffee from the island. Using this fascinating case study by way of illustration, In the Shadows of the Tropics reveals the spatial unevenness and fragmentation of modernity through a focus on modern governmentality and biopower. It argues that the practices of colonial power, and the differences that race and tropical climates were thought to make, were central to the working out of modern governmental rationalities. In this context, the usefulness of Foucault's notions of biopower, discipline and governmentality are examined. The work contributes an important rural focus to current work on studies of governmentality in geography and offers a welcome non-state dimension by considering the role of the plantation economy and individual capitalists in the lives and deaths of labourers, the destabilization of subsistence farming and the aggressive re-territorialization of populations from India to Ceylon.

Spatial and cultural analysis have recently found much common ground, focusing in particular on the nature of the city. Place/Culture/Representation brings together new and established voices involved in the reshaping of cultural geography. The authors argue that as we write our geographies we are not just representing some reality, we are creating meaning. Writing becomes as much about the author as it is about purported geographical reality. The issue becomes not scientific truth as the end but the interpretation of cultural constructions as the means. Discussing authorial power, discourses of the other, texts and textuality, landscape metaphor, the sites of power-knowledge relations and notions of community and the sense of place, the authors explore the ways in which a more fluid and sensitive geographer's art can help us make sense of ourselves and the landscapes and places we inhabit and think about.

'Writing Worlds' represents the first systematic attempt to apply poststructuralist ideas to landscape representation. Landscape - city, countryside and wilderness - is explored through the discourse of economics, geopolitics and urban planning, travellers descriptions, propaganda maps, cartography and geometry, poetry and painting. The book aims to deconstruct geographical representation in order to explore the dynamics of power in the way we see the world.

The purpose of this book is to explore issues of geographical description from a poststructuralist sensibility. Focusing on landscape representation, the authors organize their discussion of geographical writings around the three themes of discourse, text and metaphor. Each theme is used as a potential entry point into understanding the shape and substance of particular kinds of geographical writings: the discourse of economics, geopolitics and urban planning, travellers' descriptions, propaganda maps, cartography and geometry, poetry and painting. Representation of the landscape - city, countryside or wilderness - are not mimetic, rather they are a product of the nature of the discourse in which the text is written. Though the landscape representations explored by the authors varies considerably - travellers' accounts of Niagara Falls to Turner's painting of Leeds - each is a written world within a discrete discourse. These essays all participate in the ongoing project of deconstructing geographical discourse to explore the dynamics of power in the representation of landscape. This book should be of interest to students and lecturers in geography, cultural studies and sociology.

In this original work James Duncan explores the transformation of Ceylon during the mid-nineteenth century into one of the most important coffee growing regions of the world and investigates the consequent ecological disaster which erased coffee from the island. Using this fascinating case study by way of illustration, In the Shadows of the Tropics reveals the spatial unevenness and fragmentation of modernity through a focus on modern governmentality and biopower. It argues that the practices of colonial power, and the differences that race and tropical climates were thought to make, were central to the working out of modern governmental rationalities. In this context, the usefulness of Foucault's notions of biopower, discipline and governmentality are examined. The work contributes an important rural focus to current work on studies of governmentality in geography and offers a welcome non-state dimension by considering the role of the plantation economy and individual capitalists in the lives and deaths of labourers, the destabilization of subsistence farming and the aggressive re-territorialization of populations from India to Ceylon.

In this book James Duncan convincingly argues that landscapes are not only culturally produced, but that they also influence governing ideas of political and religious life. He analyzes this dialectic relationship between landscape and the pursuit of power in the royal capital of Kandy in the central highlands of Sri Lanka during the early years of the nineteenth century and demonstrates how the Kandyan landscape was consciously produced to further the perceived interests of the Kandyan kings. Using extensive archival sources, architectural analysis and mapping, the author reveals how the landscape was designed to foster a certain hegemonic reading that spoke of the power, benevolence and legitimacy of the kings in their capital.

Spatial and cultural analysis have recently found much common ground, focusing in particular on the nature of the city. Place/Culture/Representation brings together new and established voices involved in the reshaping of cultural geography.
The authors argue that as we write our geographies we are not just representing some reality, we are creating meaning. Writing becomes as much about the author as it is about purported geographical reality. The issue becomes not scientific truth as the end but the interpretation of cultural constructions as the means.
Discussing authorial power, discourses of the other, texts and textuality, landscape metaphor, the sites of power-knowledge relations and notions of community and the sense of place, the authors explore the ways in which a more fluid and sensitive geographer's art can help us make sense of ourselves and the landscapes and places we inhabit and think about.