Colonial Legality in Sumatra

ABSTRACT

The literature on the law of the colonial archipelago and the Malay-speaking world more broadly, has recently shown that colonial law was a highly fragile system, that was co-constructed by colonisers and colonised elites, and litigants. It has been convincingly argued that a variety of actors inside and outside colonial courts as well as multiple political discourses, contributed to the making of colonial legality in Java and the Straits Settlements. I propose that a turn to ontology which has recently been espoused by a number of anthropological contributions could help further explore this notion of fragility in the archipelagic world. Such an ‘ontological turn’ would allow us to closely examine the carriers of knowledge themselves, namely colonial archival documentation, and how these contributed to, but hid, the fragile nature of law. Specifically, I analyse written exchanges between Dutch colonial administrators and academics about an adat-based Muslim divorce case from Tapanuli in Sumatra, that documented how law in the Dutch East Indies was constructed through the written form and the creation of epistemic absences in the colonial archive. With ontological intervention, I argue, we can engage more deeply with such power-laden archival documentation, and recognise more thoroughly the multiple factors involved in the construction of colonial law. Moreover, a turn to ontology has the potential to disrupt our own analytical repertoire used to apprehend forms of law and sociality, undermine truth claims of the colonial archive, and produce new concepts to consider.

KEYWORDS:

• Archival absence
• assemblage
• colonial law
• ontology
• Sumatra
• Tapanuli

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Vanja Hamzic, Husnul Hakim, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback.

Note on contributor

Moritz Koenig is a doctoral student at SOAS, University of London. His primary research areas are the law of colonial Indonesia, critical theory, and anthropological engagement with the archive. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 This case is based on NA, OM, 1901–1950 [2.10.36.02], inventory no. 216.

2 KB, The Hague, 1.

3 In one case that reached the Raad van Justitie (court of appeal) in Padang in 1932, it was decided that the agreement between two people to transfer a parcel of land did not necessitate the consent of the kuria head, which traditionally had to be obtained (Boerenbeker 1935: 144).

4 NA, MvO 1852–1962 (1963) [2.10.39], inventory no. 175.

5 NA, OM, 1901–1950 [2.10.36.02], inventory no. 216.

6 The Indisch Tijdschrift van het Recht was a periodical that was published from 1915–1947 by the Orgaan der Nederlandsch-Indische Juristen-Vereeniging and featured summaries of court decisions as well as legal commentary.

7 LU, D H 797, inventory no. 260, Nota van de waarnemend Adviseur voor Inlandse Zaken aan de gouverneurgeneraal over het verzoek van Djalit gelar Mangaradja Pandapotan om tussenkomst van de regering inzake zijn echtscheiding uitgesproken door de adatrechtbank in Zuid-Tapanoeli, met bijlagen.

8 The court of first instance for natives was the landraad. Appeals could then be made to the Raad van Justitie, and eventually, the Hooggerechtshof.

9 In 1932, the colonial government considered closing down the Raad van Justitie in Padang.

10 The ‘ontological turn’ has been subjected to much critique and debate in anthropological scholarship. Its proponents have particularly been criticised for essentialist and apolitical tendencies (see, e.g. Bessire and Bond 2014; Carrithers 2010; Turner 2009). However, it is not a unitary movement. Rather, it should be seen as an umbrella for a variety of theoretical contributions. These contributions do not constitute an internally coherent whole as some proponents of the ontological turn have seen it primarily as a metaphysical intervention (Viveiros de Castro 1998, 2004; Kohn 2013), while especially Holbraad and Pedersen have engaged it as a methodological intervention.

11 See for instance, Pedersen (2011); Viveiros de Castro (1998, 2004, 2014).

12 Stoler’s use of ‘ontology’ here refers to the creation of categories, and differs from Holbraad and Pedersen’s methodological propositions.

13 NA, OM, inventory no. 216.

14 LU, D H 797, inventory no. 257, Stukken betreffende het vonnis van de adatvergadering van de Koeria Baringin in Tapanoeli inzake een echtscheiding.

15 NA, Inventaris van het archief van R.A. Kern [levensjaren 1875–1958], (1800) 1897–c.1955 [2.21.194], inventory nos. 211, 217, 257, and 260 (the latter two relate to Jalit’s case).

16 ‘Assemblage’ as part of social theory (Deleuze and Guattari 2004) aims to subvert structure and imagine entities as ‘ephemeral, [ … ] evanescent, [ … ] decentered [ … ] and heterogeneous’ (Marcus and Saka 2006: 101). Assemblages serve as heuristic tools rather than as grand metaphysical theories. This is reflected in Deleuze and Guattari’s own work as they never provided a full definition of an assemblage.

17 Material elements refer to materiality, expressive elements require a vehicle for expression, sometimes the latter is referred to as ‘symbolism’ (DeLanda 2006: 253).

18 The identification of the processes of territorialisation and deterritorialisation as well as material and expressive elements introduces structure into the assemblage. Although assemblages aim to undermine structure, a certain degree of it is necessary to maintain it. As will be shown, Jalit’s case was also not free of structure as assemblages of law were embedded in archival systems.

19 An entity can be any action, actor, circumstance, or material that influence the direction of the assemblage.

20 A similar point about the limited prospects to drive change within the legal framework has been made by Yahaya (2015b).