How do Thomas and Chanock characterize police power in the contexts they discuss? What factors do they say shaped police actions in relation to certain groups and activities?
Week 7: Custom, crime, and courts
How do Maine, Sarbah, and Lugard suggest colonial administrators should deal with existing laws and practices—“custom”/“customary law”—in areas such as India and West Africa? Why do you think they make these suggestions?
Week 6: “Primitive” law and colonial order
What makes defining “law” difficult (in Hoebel’s words, “like the quest for the Holy Grail”)? Choose some examples of practices Miner and Malinowski discuss from Nacirema and Trobriand societies, and explain why these may or may not qualify as being “legal.”
Week 5: Slavery and the law through sources
Explain one way in which we can study Abina’s story through the lens of gender. How does doing so shape our understandings of colonial rule and its impact on societies such as those in the Gold Coast?