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Forming colonial legal order under legal pluralism: the mui tsai controversy in colonial Hong Kong
Author(s)
Date Issued
2025
ISSN
2770-6869
2770-6877
Citation
Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Analysis, 2025.
Description
Since the nineteenth century, mui tsai as a Chinese custom was considered a practice of slavery by the British. They intended to abolish the Chinese mui tsai custom, particularly influenced by the global anti-slavery trend after World War I. Unlike the common approach to studying the mui tsai custom, this paper adopts a legal perspective and asks how the voices of the Chinese and the British interacted and shaped the law on mui tsai in colonial Hong Kong from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. To answer this question, archival materials from both official and unofficial sources are used. This paper argues that the British lack of understanding of local custom was both a weapon for and against the Chinese. In constructing legal order, an alliance between the colonial government and the inhabitants could, and indeed did, form to counter the imperial state.
Type
Peer Reviewed Journal Article
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