The plural legacies of legal pluralism: local practices and contestations of customary law in late colonial Indonesia

Abstract

This article explores colonial interpretations of indigenous customary law traditions in nineteenth and early twentieth century Central Java and West Sumatra during Dutch colonial rule. It argues that colonial knowledge production on and attempts at manipulating customary law interacted with indigenous responses to these attempts, generating a plurality of contentious and contested interpretations of customary legal order. Beneath the surface of the tightly knit colonial schemes of supposedly codified ‘customary law’, these interactions generated a reality of law-making that significantly deviated from initial intentions and concepts of judicial involvement as outlined on paper, thereby engendering novel forms of legal pluralism.