Legal Subjectivity in Colonial Minangkabau

Elite Discourses and the Vernacularisation of Dutch Law in the Early Twentieth Century

Bibliographic Data

ID17819662
AuthorsMoritz Koenig (0000-0002-4822-7517, Film Independent, corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-23
Publication date2026-04-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Journal of Law and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2052-9015 • E-ISSN: 2052-9023
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/als.2026.10049
OpenAlexW7155359569
LanguageEN
References cited15

This article discusses the transformation of West Sumatran (Minangkabau) subjectivity-making through legal discourses in the late colonial period. Emphasis is put on the role of Minangkabau elites who adopted such legal discourses from Dutch colonial ethnographers, allowing them to position themselves as mediators between their Sumatran peers and the colonial government and to negotiate themselves towards political power. I argue that legal subjectivities played a dual role in these endeavours; they were developed to re-fashion Minangkabau elites as experts in colonial modernity and to project these new senses of self outwards to a wider public. A flurry of publications, from newspapers to monographs on custom and court manuals, facilitated the proliferation of legal discourses and engaged in multiple types of identity formation underpinned by law. This article investigates the different types of legal subjectivities espoused in these publications and their circumscription of everyday life within the rigidifying parameters of law

Agency (philosophy) · Colonialism · Elite · Identity (music) · Modernity · Negotiation · Politics · Subjectivity · Asian Studies and History · Indigenous Peoples' Rights and Law · Legal and cultural studies analysis

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