Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T03:49:53.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Treating Law as Knowledge: Telling Colonial Officers What to Say to Africans about Running “Their Own” Native Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Sally Falk Moore
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article is presented at two levels throughout. On the surface it is a straightforward historical analysis of a directive to British officers in charge of African courts in the late colonial period, with some African data adduced to sketch the local context into which the British were trying to insert new procedures and practices. On a deeper level the article uses the British colonial occasion to explore widely held cultural assumptions in Anglo-American law about the definability of “justice,” the concept of time and timing in legal affairs, and the complex place of the idea of legitimate, authoritative, and permanent “knowledge” in legal institutions.

Type
Legal Culture and Legal Discourse
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , 1992 , pp. 11 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by The Law and Society Association.

References

REFERENCES

African Conference on Local Courts and Customary Law (1963) Report of the Proceedings of the Conference held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 8–18 Sept. 1963. Under the Chairmanship of the Minister of Justice of Tanzania, Sheikh Amri Abedi. Geneva: H. Studer S.A.Google Scholar
Allott, A. N. (1969) “The Restatement of African Law Project of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. A General Report on the Period 1959–1969.” Mimeographed five-page document dated June 1969.Google Scholar
Allott, Antony (1960) Essays in African Law. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1984) Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Chanock, Martin (1985) Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, John L., & Roberts, Simon (1981) Rules and Processes: The Cultural Logic of Dispute in an African Context. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, John L., & Roberts, Simon (1977) “The Invocation of Norms in Dispute Settlement: The Tswana Case,” in Hamnett, I., ed., Social Anthropology and Law. ASA Monograph No. 14. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
El-Hakim, Sherif (1978) “The Structure and Dynamics of Consensus Decision Making,” 13 (1) Man 55.Google Scholar
Fallers, Lloyd (1969) Law without Precedent. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gluckman, Max (1955) The Judicial Process among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia. Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Gluckman, Max (1965) Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Gluckman, Max, ed. (1969) Ideas and Procedures in African Customary Law. London: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack (1977) The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack (1986) The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, A. W. M. (1930) “Land Tenure, Moshi District,” Manuscript Collections of Africana, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, MSS Afr. s. 1001.Google Scholar
Gulliver, P. H. (1969) “Dispute Settlement without Courts: The Ndendeuli of Southern Tanzania,” in Nader, L., ed., Law in Culture and Society. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Gulliver, P. H. (1979) Disputes and Negotiations: A Cross-cultural Perspective. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hailey, Lord (1950) Native Administration in the British African Territories, Part I. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1961) The Concept of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, Michael (1987) Anthropology through the Looking Glass. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Hooker, M. B. (1975) Legal Pluralism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Iliffe, John (1979) A Modern History of Tanzania. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Kuper, Hilda, & Kuper, Leo, eds. (1965) African Law, Adaptation and Development. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuper, Leo, & Smith, M. G. (1969) Pluralism in Africa. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Mann, Kristin, & Roberts, Richard, eds. (1991) Law in Colonial Africa. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.Google Scholar
March, James G., & Olsen, Johan P. (1976) Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Miner, Horace (1956) “Body Ritual among the Nacirema,” 58 American Anthropologist 503.Google Scholar
Moore, D. C. (1976) The Politics of Deference: A Study of the Mid-Nineteenth Century English Political System. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Sally Falk (1972) “Legal Liability and Evolutionary Interpretation: Some Aspects of Strict Liability, Self-Help and Collective Responsibility,” in Gluckman, M., ed., The Allocation of Responsibility. Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Sally Falk (1970) “Politics, Procedures, and Norms in Changing Chagga Law,” 40 Africa 321 (Oct.).Google Scholar
Moore, Sally Falk (1977) “Individual Interests and Organisational Structures: Dispute Settlements as ‘Events of Articulation,‘” in Hamnett, I., ed., Social Anthropology and Law. ASA Monograph No. 14, London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Sally Falk (1986) Social Facts and Fabrications: “Customary Law” on Kilimanjaro 1880–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Sally Falk (1991) “From Giving and Lending to Selling: Property Transactions Reflecting Historical Changes on Kilimanjaro,” in Mann, K. & Roberts, R., eds., Law in Colonial Africa. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.Google Scholar
Moore, Sally Falk (1991) “Inflicting Harm Righteously: Turning a Relative into a Stranger: An African Case,” in Fogen, M. T., ed., Fremde der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann.Google Scholar
Mudimbe, V. Y. (1988) The Invention of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Ofuatey-Kodjoe, W. (1977) The Principle of Self-Determination in International Law. New York: Nellen Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Phillips, Arthur (1945) Crown Counsel, Colony and Protectorate of Kenya. Report on Native Tribunals. Nairobi: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Rabinow, Paul (1986) “Representations Are Social Facts: Modernity and Post-Modernity in Anthropology,” in Clifford, J. & Marcus, G. E., eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence (1983) “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa,” in Hobsbawm, E. & Ranger, T., eds., The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, Simon (1979) Order and Dispute: An Introduction to Legal Anthropology. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Eng.: Penguin.Google Scholar
Rosen, Lawrence (1989) The Anthropology of Justice: Law as Culture in Islamic Society. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Sawyerr, Akilagpa (1977) “Judicial Manipulation of Customary Family Law in Tanzania,” in Roberts, S. A., ed., Law and the Family in Africa. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Schapera, Isaac ([1938] 1955) Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom. 2d ed. London: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Simon, Herbert (1957) Models of Man. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Snyder, Francis (1981) Capitalism and Legal Change: An African Transformation. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Tanzania (1953) Local Government Memoranda No. 2. Dar es Salaam: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Tanzania (1954) “African Local Government in Tanzania.” Local Government Memoranda No. 1, Part 1. Dar es Salaam: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Tanzania (1957) Local Government Memoranda No. 2 (Local Courts). 2d ed. Dar es Salaam: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Tanzania (1963) Sheria ya Mokakama za Mahakama. Dar es Salaam: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Tanzania (1964a) Maelezo ya Mahakama za Movanzo. Dar es Salaam: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Tanzania (1964b) Primary Courts Manual. Dar es Salaam: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Tanganyika Territory (1930a) Native Administration Memoranda No. 1. Principles of Native Administration and Their Application. 2d ed. Dar es Salaam: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Tanganyika Territory (1930b) Native Administration Memoranda No. 2. Native Courts. 2d ed. Dar es Salaam: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Uganda (1941) Handbook on Native Courts for the Guidance of Administrative Officers. Kampala: Government of Uganda.Google Scholar