Shaunnagh Dorsett

Legal Histories of the British Empire: Laws, Engagements and Legacies Shaunnagh Dorsett 1st edition

Brief Description: "A 'new' approach to legal history in the British Empire is emerging. Rather than the traditional 'single site' approach taken by colonial legal historians, scholars are increasingly engaging in work which is pan-colonial, comparative, or which, if it is focused on a particular colony, seeks to place that site within the broader legal, political, cultural and intellectual frameworks of Empire. It focuses on the comparisons, the mobilities, the continuities and the ruptures of legal engagement across the globe. This book brings together established senior scholars with exciting newer authors from a range of disciplines, in order to present just such an approach to the law in and of Empire. Too often law is still relegated to one of a number of forces or trajectories - for example the movements of military forces and commodities that circulated and operated in Empire. This collection seeks, therefore, to investigate law's central place in the British Empire, and the role of its agents in embedding British rule and culture in colonial territories. Showcasing the richness and diversity of writing about law in Empire, it illuminates the continuities and discontinuities of law's effects in Empire and the ways in which law was a crucial element in the manifestation of Empire itself. It will be of considerable interest to legal historians, top historians of Empire, and anyone concerned with Empire's contemporary legacy."--Biographical Note: Shaunnagh Dorsett is Professor of Law at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her work focuses on Crown-Indigenous relations in colonial New South Wales / New Zealand and sovereignty formation in the first half of the nineteenth century. John McLaren is Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Victoria, British Columbia. His research interests lie in the field of Canadian and Comparative Colonial Legal History. He has written widely and edited several books of essays in those fields. Marc Notes: A GlassHouse Book.; A 'new' approach to legal history in the British Empire is emerging. Rather than the traditional 'single site' approach taken by colonial legal historians, scholars are increasingly engaging in work which is pan-colonial, comparative, or which, if it is focused on a particular colony, seeks to place that site within the broader legal, political, cultural and intellectual frameworks of Empire. It focuses on the comparisons, the mobilities, the continuities and the ruptures of legal engagement across the globe. This book brings together established senior scholars with exciting newer authors from a range of disciplines, in order to present just such an approach to the law in and of Empire. Too often law is still relegated to one of a number of forces or trajectories - for example the movements of military forces and commodities that circulated and operated in Empire. This collection seeks, therefore, to investigate law's central place in the British Empire, and the role of its agents in embedding British rule and culture in colonial territories. Showcasing the richness and diversity of writing about law in Empire, it illuminates the continuities and discontinuities of law's effects in Empire and the ways in which law was a crucial element in the manifestation of Empire itself. It will be of considerable interest to legal historians, top historians of Empire, and anyone concerned with Empire's contemporary legacy.--; Provided by publisher. Table of Contents: Notes on contributors -- List of abbreviations -- 1. Laws, engagements and legacies: the legal histories of the British Empire - an introduction / Shaunnagh Dorsett, John McLaren -- Part I. Framing empire: people and institutions -- 2. Navigating the Scylla of imperial politico-legal aspirations and Charybdis of colonial micro-politics in the British Empire: the case of the judges / John McLaren -- 3. Asserting judicial sovereignty: the debate over the abolition of Privy Council jurisdiction in British Africa / Bonny Ibhawoh -- 4. Law, culture and history: Amir Ali's interpretation of Islamic law / Nandini Chatterjee -- 5. A judicial maverick: John Gorrie at large in the Victorian Empire / Bridget Brereton -- Part II. Laws -- 6. Benjamin Knowles v Rex: judging murder, race and respectability from colonial Ghana to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1928-30 / Stacey Hynd -- 7. Inventing extraordinary criminality: a study of criminalization by the Calcutta Goondas Act / Sugata Nandi -- 8. Sovereignties in dispute: the Komagata Maru and spectral indigeneities, 1914 / Renisa Mawani -- Part III. Engagements -- 9. Imperial legacies: chartered enterprises in Northern British America / Phslip Girard -- 10. Understanding 'Chinese customs': Sinchew rulings in the Straits Settlements, 1830s-1870s / Stephanie Po-Yin Chung -- 11. Translating the Hedaya: colonial foundations of Islamic law / John Strawson -- 12. Travelling laws: Burton and the Draft Act for the Protection and Amelioration of the Aborigines 1838 (NSW) / Shaunnagh Dorsett -- Part IV. Legacies -- 13. Legacies of empire: race and labour contracts in the Upper Mississippi River Valley / Allison Gorsuch -- 14. Empire on trial: slavery, villeinage and law in imperial Britain / Dana Rabin -- 15. Macaulay's India law reforms and labour in the British Empire / Barry Wright -- 16. A slave trade jurisdiction': attempts against the slave trade and the making of a space of law (Arabo-Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Red Sea., circa 1820-1900) / Guillemette Grouzet -- Index.

Contributor Bio:  McLaren, John John McLaren is a professor emeritus in the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria.