This book examines legal change in the Iberian empires by analyzing colonial experiences through the dynamic relationship between global and local processes. Drawing on case studies from Portuguese and Spanish imperial contexts, it challenges views of colonial law as a rigid system imposed from metropolitan centers. Instead, this volume shows how law was continuously reshaped through negotiation, adaptation, and contestation in colonial settings. Norms were transformed through everyday practices, jurisdictional conflicts, and interactions among diverse actors. By examining normative regulation, religious jurisdiction, legal practice, and criminal justice, this book highlights the local production of legal knowledge within imperial structures and reconsiders the relationship between law, power, and social practice in early modern colonial societies.
Luisa Stella de Oliveira Coutinho Silva, Ph.D. (2018), Universidade de Lisboa, is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, specializing in womenâs legal history in early modern imperial and colonial contexts.
The book will be of interest and relevance to academic institutes, researchers, and students focused on global history, legal history, imperial history, and critical theories.