ABSTRACT
In Law and Disorder in the Post-Colony (2006: vii), Jean and John Comaroff ask, “Are the postcolonies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America haunted by more unregulated violence, un/civil, and random terror than other twenty-first-century states?” They answer this question, along with a string of other similar ones, with the statement, “The reflex answer to this brace of questions – is yes” (ibid.). Although they follow-up to say that there is something deeper happening, brilliantly explore the paradox of the postcolonial fetish with the rule of law, and how neoliberalism has bred lawlessness, their ultimate argument that the South creates a “simulacra of social order” or that “criminality with violence has become endemic to the postcolonial condition” (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2006: 7) is not what this edited volume has explored. The preceding chapters did not start with the assumption that “lawlessness” or the “simulacra of order” is the condition to be studied, but rather how criminal laws and institutions are in themselves historical constructs that attempt to define, control, and regulate behaviors in Southern societies that are constantly shifting and that many times have origins and cultural understandings different from the laws and institutions themselves. This edited volume, therefore, should instead be seen as exploring laws in the “frontier” (de Sousa Santos, 1995: 574). As opposed to studying the periphery to foreshadow the unfortunate future of the center, this volume explored laws in the South to expose
very selective and instrumental use of the traditions brought to the frontier by pioneers and emigrants; invention of new forms of sociability; weak hierarchies; plurality of powers and juridical orders; fluidity of social relations; promiscuity of strangers and intimates; mixes of heritage and inventions.
(ibid.) By providing a wide range of perspectives, instead of focusing on violence and disorder, this edited volume serves as a spectacle of sorts, rejoicing in the vast array of difference and questioning established canons and the “fetish of the rule of law” by turning formal law on its head, suspending formal hierarchy, deconsecrating inequality, and allowing for a frank and free communication between all (Bakhtin, 1934 [1984]).