Gender, Violence and Criminal Justice in the Colonial Pacific: 1880-1920

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Centering on cases of sexual violence, this book illuminates the contested introduction of British and French colonial criminal justice in the Pacific Islands during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu/New Hebrides. It foregrounds the experiences of Indigenous Islanders and indentured laborers in the colonial court system, a space in which marginalized voices entered the historical record. Rape and sexual assault trials reveal how hierarchies of race, gender and status all shaped the practice of colonial law in the courtroom and the gendered experiences of colonialism. Trials provided a space where men and women narrated their own story and at times challenged the operation of colonial law. Through these cases, Gender, Violence and Criminal Justice in the Colonial Pacific highlights the extent to which colonial bureaucracies engaged with and affected private lives, as well as the varied ways in which individuals and communities responded to such intrusions and themselves reshaped legal practices and institutions in the Pacific. With bureaucratic institutions unable to deal with the complex realities of colonial lives, Stevens reveals how the courtroom often became a theatrical space in which authority was performed, deliberately obscuring the more complex and violent practices that were central to both colonialism and colonial law-making. Exploring the intersections of legal pluralism and local pragmatism across British and French colonialization in the Pacific, this book shows how island communities and early colonial administrators adopted diverse and flexible approaches towards criminal justice, pursuing alternative forms of justice ranging from unofficial courts to punitive violence in order to deal with cases of sexual assault.

Reviews

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, The University of Sydney, Australia *

Author Bio

Kate Stevens is Lecturer of History at University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her research focuses on comparative histories of cultural, environmental and economic exchange in the colonial and postcolonial Pacific. She has published her work in the Journal of Pacific History, Law and History Review and The Contemporary Pacific, and supported by the Marsden Fund and Camargo Foundation.