Silent Architects: Negotiating Categories in the German Commission for the Study of Native Law, c. 1907/08

• In Event: Categorising Humanity: Paper Tools and the Nascent Human Sciences

English Abstract

At times the German Colonial Office would collect rather specific anthropological data in an attempt to make sense of the heterogeneous societies they sought to subdue overseas. This kind of administrative knowledge making mostly followed the script of an enquete, which had become a standard tool in the parliamentary arsenal by the end of the 19th century. Enquetes were then understood as collections of discriptive data and evidence which centered around issues of public concern such as the trade in alcoholic spirits, persistent slavery, sudden declines in health or indigenous rights. The case study will focus on the discussions among the members of the Commission for the Study of Native Law (Kommission für die Erforschung des Eingeborenenrechts) around 1907/08. To capture the diverse constitutions and practices of unwritten common law in the colonies, hundreds of questionnaires on indigenous legal customs circulated through colonial and missionary networks on their behest, before they were compiled in Berlin in view of novel legislation. I argue that with enquetes the first phase of data production is of particular interest, when the counting categories are decided upon by politically assigned experts. Behind closed doors, data architectures are created, which influence all latter stages of imperial empiricism of rules. It mattered who sat at the table, and which traditions of the nascent field of legal anthropology where brought to bear, and which categories emphasised or discontinued. The issue of codification loomed large in these discussions—with envoys from Togo acting as much-contested precursors, who already practiced a pragmatic inclusion of indigenous legal notions into colonial of governance. Against the background of evolutionist and psychological, abolitionist and protectionist traditions of anthropological data collection, the decisions of the Commission for the Study of Native Law merit renewed attention.

Author

• Anna Echterhölter, University of Vienna