How Did African Intermediaries Shape Colonial Law Through Agency and Translation?

Abstract information

In this video, RAQUEL SIROTTI explores African agency during European colonialism, focusing on how intermediaries, such as translators and private companies, influenced colonial law. She argues that these intermediaries played a significant role in creating normativities, not just translating European law. Sirotti uses court cases and oral sources to highlight how law in the colonies was co-produced by Africans and Europeans, emphasizing the power dynamics and the agency of Africans within the colonial system. Her work uses alternative media like podcasts and videos to share these findings and aims to expand the scope of her research to include other African countries and languages.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB101182

Researcher

Raquel Sirotti is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, where she has been based since 2020. Her research focuses on court cases, normative production, and the history of crime, punishment, and criminal law, with a particular emphasis on Brazil and Mozambique. Sirotti completed her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory / Goethe-Universität Frankfurt in 2020, graduating summa cum laude. She also holds an M.A. in Law (Legal History and Legal Theory) from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, where she also graduated summa cum laude. Sirotti obtained her Bachelor of Laws (J.D.) from the State University of Maringá, Brazil, in 2013.

Institution information

Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory

The Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory considers its most important task to consist in engaging in theoretically reflected historical research in the field of law and other forms of normativity in order to make a specific contribution to the fundamental research in legal scholarship, the social sciences and historical humanities. The Institute’s research examines law, its constitution, legitimation, transformation and practice. Particular attention is paid to the positioning of historical forms of ‘law’ in the context of other normative orders. The establishment of a department engaged in developing a multidisciplinary legal theory in 2020 substantially expands the Institute's engagement with issues of legal theory.

Original Publication

Unwritten Histories: exploring colonial normativities in Africa through podcasting

Tramas Coloniais | Podcast