The Indisch Tijdschrift van het Recht, 1915–1947

This article discusses the structure and argumentative style of the Indisch Tijdschrift van het Recht (hereafter ITR or Tijdschrift ) (1915–1947), one of the primary sources for scholarly investigations of late colonial law in the Dutch East Indies. I argue that a ‘reading along the grain’ and problematization of its peculiar types of knowledge-making can help give texture to academic analyses of colonial law. This article zooms in on the structure of the Tijdschrift ’s case-reporting and legal commentaries to contextualize it within historical debates of law and investigate the role it played in reorganizing the colonial economy. I argue that the Tijdschrift allowed colonial scholars, judges, and administrators to portray law as an objective, neutral framework for the containment of everyday life and local adat . However, detailed analysis also highlights the epistemic anxieties of Dutch colonial legalists about the efficiency of legal methods. Both these issues should be considered when referencing the Tijdschrift as a scholarly source.