Across Oceans of Law

Renisa Mawani is Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia and author of Colonial Proximities: Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871–1921.

"Across Oceans of Law is complex, comprehensively researched, and engagingly presented. . . . Each of the four chapters presents a unique perspective on thinking about the diverse and significant themes found in the examination of the changing development of maritime jurisprudence and evolving interpretation of the freedom of the sea, changing definitions of the legal nature of a ship, the status of colonial subjects, anticolonial restrictions on immigration, and the career of Gurdit Singh. . . . Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." - P. D. Thomas (Choice) "Renisa Mawani has written a beautifully conceived, deeply researched, and elegantly argued book that all of us should read." - Fahad Bishara (H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews) "Across Oceans of Law is much more than an account of yet another dark chapter in Canadian and British imperial history. . . . Fresh and compelling. . . . Straightforward in its ingenuity and genuinely convincing in its execution. Indeed, there is here an elegance in the delivery of the core idea." - Jen Hendry (LSE Review of Books) "Across Oceans of Law follows a breathtaking scalar approach attentive to the hierarchies of race, time, and jurisdiction, while narrating a microhistorical story of Komagata Maru’s transoceanic travel to recover oceans as 'vibrant spaces of law, politics and poetics' (236). It is a beautifully written, richly documented, and theoretically sophisticated study that connects the dense imperial, legal, and maritime histories with global histories of time from the perspective of a ship steered by a colonial subject during the heyday of anticolonialism." - Debjani Bhattacharyya (Law and History Review) "This impressively researched and theoretically sophisticated book will profoundly transform the ways in which scholars of migration, empire, and anticolonialism approach their work." - Seema Sohi (Journal of Interdisciplinary History) "What makes the book particularly valuable are the questions that it raises about freedom and movement, questions that are timely, especially given the manifold migration crises taking place around the globe today. Thus, for scholars who wish to better understand contemporary concerns around migration and race, Mawani's book is certainly a good resource." - Alia Somani (The Historian) "It is…impossible not to appreciate the urgent contemporary relevance and resonance of the 'ocean as method' from the outset of Mawani's text." - Honni Van Rijswik and Anthea Vogl (Law and Critique) "By requiring scholars to think thematically, narratively, connectedly, vertically, temporally, and non-foundationally, Across Oceans of Law provides stimulating conceptual tools for applications in contexts beyond the voyage of the Komagata Maru, and beyond the seas." - Jennifer Hendry (Journal of Law and Society)

• List of Illustrations  ixAcknowledgments  xiIntroduction. Currents and Countercurrents of Law and Radicalism  11. The Free Sea: A Juridical Space  352. The Ship as Legal Person  733. Land, Sea, and Subjecthood  1154. Anticolonial Vernaculars of Indigeneity  1525. The Fugitive Sojourns of Gurdit Singh  188Epilogue. Race, Jurisdiction, and the Free Sea Reconsidered  231Notes  241Bibliography  293Index  319