Dou Donggo Justice

by Just, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780847683284
• ISBN10: 0847683281
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc

Summary

This study of justice and morality among the Dou Donggo, a highland people in Indonesia, offers an innovative approach to understanding the workings of law and dispute settlement in small communities. Peter Just argues that the operation of any legal system is best understood in the context of its moral ontology: the fundamental culture assumptions that the people have about the nature of the world, the beings that inhabit it, and their relationships to one another, as well as ideas about causation, liability, etc. The author takes Dou Donggo beliefs in evil spirits and tutelary gods, theories of conception and bodily humors, and the magical prowess of judges who are also healers and links them to the guiding principles and day-to-day operation of a consensual system of justice. The first part of the book provides contextualizing material on current debates about ethnography and the anthropology of law, a lively account of the author's field experiences, and a history of the Dou Donggo. Two subsequent chapters use anecdotes and examples to explicate the constitution of the village as a moral community and the moral ontology on which that community is based. Concluding chapters provide a 'thick description' of three real disputes witnessed by the author.

Author Biography

Phfr Just is associate professor of anthropology at Williams College

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction An Ethnography in the Anthropology of Law	1	(28)
Part One: The Setting
Portraits	29	(30)
Wedding Receptions and Praying Dogs: Donggo in Historical Perspective	59	(36)
Repairing Sounds and Speech: The Moral Community	95	(38)
Pity and Awareness: The Moral Ontology	133	(30)
Part Two: Three Cases
Letting the Evidence Fit the Crime: The Case of the Assaulted Gossip	163	(26)
Dead Goats and What Might Have Been: The Case of the Amorous Guru	189	(22)
A Policeman's Lot Is Not a Happy One: The Case of the Jilted Fiancee	211	(24)
Glossary	235	(6)
Bibliography	241	(18)
Index	259	(6)
About the Author	265