This dissertation project examines the relation between colonial social knowledge production, the ethnographic enterprise undertaken by late-nineteenth-century demographers, surveyors, and frontier administrators and the emergence of legal pluralism. Of specific focus is the overlap among customary, Islamic, and European civil codes that explain politically salient self-perceptions of individuals in court. The research uses historical analyses to address three questions. How did colonial social knowledge producers formulate there ideas about indigenous customary and Islamic laws, how did these laws inform administrative strategies, and how did these strategies affect patterns of individual identity formation? The research is being carried out in Pakistan primarily with comparative data being collected in Southeast Asia. The outcome of this work will advance our understanding of the development and expression of legal pluralism in contemporary societies.
