Gender, Violence and Criminal Justice in the Colonial Pacific, 1880-1920
Bloomsbury ‘Empire’s Other Histories, January 2023
Centring on cases of sexual violence, this book illuminates the contested introduction of British and French criminal justice in the colonial Pacific during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as rape and sexual assault trials reveal how hierarchies of race, gender and status shaped the practice of colonial law and gendered experiences of colonialism. These cases highlight how colonial bureaucracies affected private lives, as well as the ways in which individuals and communities responded to such intrusions and reshaped legal practices and institutions in the Pacific. It foregrounds the experiences of Indigenous Islanders and indentured labourers in court, a space in which marginalized voices entered the colonial archive.
I reveal how the courtroom often became a theatrical space where authority was performed, deliberately obscuring the more complex and violent practices central to colonial lawmaking. Exploring the intersections of legal pluralism and local pragmatism, I show how island communities and colonial administrators adopted diverse approaches beyond the courtroom, pursuing alternative forms of justice ranging from unofficial courts to punitive violence to deal with cases of sexual assault.
“It is unusual to examine different national forms of colonialism alongside one another and comparatively within the same region at the same time. This book does so with great success, showing how magistrates, colonists, missionaries, indentured workers and Pacific Islanders negotiated and conflicted over forms of law and justice. Both the limits and the power of colonial law enforcement are revealed, along with its racialized and gendered nature.”
- ALAN LESTER, PROFESSOR OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX, UK
“This finely-drawn, illuminating study of law-making in the colonial Pacific uncovers how complex cultures of gender, race and colonial violence came together inside and beyond the colonial courtroom, revealing the coercive yet fractured nature of colonial governance and, within it, the strategic responses of colonized subjects.”
- AMANDA NETTELBECK, PROFESSOR, AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, AUSTRALIA
“Kate Stevens’ excellent study, combining analyses of systems of formal justice and ‘rough justice’ with discussions of the lived experiences of the colonised and colonising, provides an original and very perceptive contribution to the history of the South Pacific and to our understanding of crime and punishment in colonial situations.”
- ROBERT ALDRICH, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA