Preface

Scholars of colonialism are accustomed to having to defend the relevance of their work. While the past few years have seen a surge of interest in this area, the quesВtion вЂњWhy does it matter?вЂќ remains, even if unspoken.

In the context of law, colonial studies may appear even more as an anomaly; after all, the practice of law is primarily concerned with the law as it is, not as it was, particularly centuries ago.

The research presented here examines the role law played in influencing MauВritian society. The main matter of concern is the social effect of law, as initially introduced and developed during the colonial period. This study is thus not a positivist legal account, but rather seeks to answer the question as to how legal structures influenced culture, identity and entitlement, leading to the empowerВment of some and the deprivation of others.

A gap was perceived to exist in form of a legal examination of historical events, which has remained largely missing from the scholarly discourse. The perspective of a legal analysis upon primary sources has allowed this study to subvert certain accounts previously deemed canonical in Mauritian history. Through this synВecdoche, using Mauritius as a looking-glass through which colonial legacies are examined, it is hoped that there are wider conclusions to be drawn for the study and understanding of imperialism and international law.

To be sure, colonial rule remained an experience for various countries around the world well into the 20th century. Mauritius achieved independence from Britain in 1968, and as such, during the lifetime of this author's parents, who were both born there.

Colonialism is thus not as ancient a subject as sometimes implied by commenВtators, yet whether regarded as a bygone or recent era, its problematic relationВship with the present remains. Resistance to fully integrating it as part of Britain's imperial legacy became evident again when it transpired that the Home Office had commissioned a course on colonialism for its 36,000 employees, yet seemed more concerned they were not вЂњbrowbeatenвЂќ by the content, and reportedly asked academics involved in the development of the material to вЂњtone downвЂќ parts of it.^[1] Evidently this counters the purpose of commissioning the course in

Preface xi the first place, to which the Home Office committed after a report established that the Windrush scandal was the result of racist ideology traceable back to the British Empire.^[2]

A full analysis of the concept of racism as a social phenomenon is beyond the scope of this work.

Its focus are the two major labour systems which supВported the colonial project, namely slavery and indentured labour. Yet much can be gleaned from 19th century practices which dehumanized and commoditized workers for exploitative ends. In the words of Aime Cesaire, вЂњcolonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word.вЂќ^[3] They find illustration in the pages of this book, which demonstrate how colonization operated, in the context of both unfree and free labour, with consequences which resonate far beyond the boundary lines of an island in the Indian Ocean. If conВsidered attentively, the reader will be in a position to answer the question posed at the beginning: why the study of colonialism matters.

Nandini S. Boodia-Canoo London, 2022

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Source: Boodia-Canoo Nandini. Slavery, Indenture and the Law: Assembling a Nation in Colonial Mauritius. Routledge,2022. вЂ” 221 p.. 2022

Preface

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