Lawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka
Author | : Nadeera Rupesinghe |
Publisher | : Leiden University Press |
Total Pages | : 316 |
Release | : 2022-02-19 |
ISBN-10 | : 908728375X |
ISBN-13 | : 9789087283759 |
Rating | : 4/5 (5X Downloads) |
Download or read book Lawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka written by Nadeera Rupesinghe and published by Leiden University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-19 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lived experiences of the law in colonial Sri Lanka. Dutch and Sinhalese law coexisted in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Sri Lanka. A dual forum called the Landraad empowered colonial justices to defer to either imperial or indigenous law on issues ranging from standards of evidence to inheritance rights. So, while major judicial decisions were often skewed toward assimilation, everyday life in the colony was marked by a cultural multiplicity. In Navigating Pluralities, Nadeera Rupesinghe focuses on these day-to-day experiences of the law in colonial Sri Lanka, discovering how such plural practices affected both colonized and colonizers in surprising ways.