Poster Session 4, 2:15 PM - 3:00 PM: Campus Center Auditorium [A72]

Administering Justice? The Role of Law in Postcolonial Literature

Presenter: Isabella Gerardi

Faculty Sponsor: Anupama Arora

School: UMass Dartmouth

Research Area: Literature

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the way the law is depicted in Anglophone postcolonial literature to better understand the role of laws in colonization as well as the lingering legacy and power of these imposed legal systems. Building on existing scholarship in law and (postcolonial) literature, I examine texts by Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Nadine Gordimer to understand how much influence legal systems have on nearly every aspect of life, providing immense power to those who control the law. Placing these texts in conversation with works by scholars such as Nasser Hussain, Isobel M Findlay, Katherine Isobel Baxter, and Martha Nussbaum makes clear the impact of colonization on global ideas of jurisprudence. What legal systems are given credibility - considered the ‘right way’ to operate - becomes crucial in the development of colonization and to the forced dissolution of indigenous legal systems. This becomes a dangerous and powerful method for the imposition of Western law and the delegitimization of local systems, which gives way to colonial control that maintains a lasting legacy. The text's depictions of legal life throughout the process of colonization and - for some - independence, illuminate the ways in which legal systems become weaponized as a way to disenfranchise a people, to legitimize resource extraction, and perpetuate violent domination.