The Land, the Sea, and the Colonial Production of Space within the Anglo/British Empire

Abstract

The manufacturing of colonial legal spatialities in the Age of Discovery has traditionally been studied by historians, human geographers, and cartographers. Seldom have legal scholars examined it. This essay aims to fill the gap in legal research and assesses processes of spatial production that took place in colonies by adopting a legal-geographical approach. Special attention is paid to how the English, and later British Empires manufactured both terrestrial and oceanic spaces. The essay maintains that, within what this article calls the ‘Anglo/British Empire’, the integrated geographies of land and sea were facilitated by some intrinsic qualities of the English common law. Its legal coding devised a holistic approach that captured the whole earth even beyond the divide between land and sea.