The "Reasonable Man" in Colonial Nigeria

Baxter, Katherine (2020) The "Reasonable Man" in Colonial Nigeria. Open Library of Humanities, 6 (1). pp. 1-18. ISSN 2056-6700

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.495

Abstract

A key scholarly debate in late colonial law concerns the interpretation of the ‘reasonable man’. The reasonable man, whose paradigmatic status was itself a contested subject for English law, was all the more problematic for colonial law when the idea of a ‘reasonable native’ was presumed in and of itself to be questionable. Should the ‘native’ be held to the same standard of reasonableness as the Englishman? And if not, what standard of reason was valid? This article examines how popular literature of the period, both fiction and memoir, reflects these concerns. Focusing on accounts of colonial Nigeria, I show how this literature repeatedly complicates the perceived ‘reasonableness’ of both Europeans and colonial subjects. Moreover, I demonstrate that these complications, frequently dramatized through narratives of the uncanny, make visible colonial anxieties about the distinction between native custom and colonial authority.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: M900 Other in Law
Q300 English studies
T500 African studies
Department: Faculties > Arts, Design and Social Sciences > Humanities
Depositing User: Elena Carlaw
Date Deposited: 28 Feb 2020 15:41
Last Modified: 31 Jul 2021 11:49
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/42288

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