By the 1890s, Siam (Thailand) was the last holdout against European imperialism in Southeast Asia. But the kingdom's exceptional status came with a substantial caveat: Bangkok, its bustling capital, was a port city that was subject to many of the same legal and fiscal constraints as other colonial treaty ports. Sovereign Necropolis offers new insight into turn-of-the-century Thai history by disinterring the forgotten stories of those who died "unnatural deaths" during this period and the work of the Siamese state to assert their rights in a pluralistic legal arena.

Based on a neglected cache of inquest files compiled by the Siamese Ministry of the Capital, official correspondence, and newspaper accounts, Trais Pearson documents the piecemeal introduction of new forms of legal and medical concern for the dead. He reveals that the investigation of unnatural death demanded testimony from diverse strata of society: from the unlettered masses to the king himself. These cases raised questions about how to handle the dead-were they spirits to be placated or legal subjects whose deaths demanded compensation?-as well as questions about jurisdiction, rights, and liability.

Exhuming the history of imperial politics, transnational commerce, technology, and expertise, Sovereign Necropolis demonstrates how the state's response to global flows transformed the nature of legal subjectivity and politics in lasting ways. A compelling exploration of the troubling lives of the dead in a cosmopolitan treaty port, the book is a notable contribution to the growing corpus of studies in science, law, and society in the non-Western world.

About the Author

Trais Pearson is an independent scholar. His work has appeared in journals including Modern Asian Studies and Bulletin of the History of Medicine.

Reviews

Pearson has sketched a distinctive legal environment among many others in the colonial world at the turn of the nineteenth century and has shown that the treaty port is the most useful lens through which to compare Siam with other parts of colonial Asia.

* Journal of the Siam Society/New Mandala *

Sovereign Necropolis is crisply written, even lively; despite the work's stakes in area studies literature and sociocultural theory, the discussion is accessible for non-subject-matter experts.

* The Social History of Medicine *

Trais Pearson's Sovereign Necropolis is a well-researched historical study that examines the adoption of European legal practices related to postmortem examinations in the context of this political reality. Sovereign Necropolis makes key contributions to Thai history.

* Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society *

Sovereign Necropolis, by Trais Pearson, is a remarkable, compelling, and engaging study about the politics of death in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Siam. Pearson brilliantly captures throughout the book the ensuing tensions between the Siamese elite and the foreign powers, and documents how those conflicts and negotiations played out in the plural legal arena of civil law and forensic medicine. Brilliantly organized and eloquently written, Sovereign Necropolis is a notable and original contribution to our understanding of modern Thai history.

* Asian Journal of Law and Society *

In attempting to reach a broader audience than the Thai or Southeast Asian studies communities, Pearson employs a comparative approach, drawing from a wide range of cases and theories in various imperial and colonial contexts. This is a must-read for those interested in the politics of death and of civilising reforms in Southeast Asia.

* Journal of Southeast Asian Studies *

This is a book that is full of surprising and intriguing insights into Siam's peculiar semi-colonial status in matters concerning accidental death. It will contribute to the now burgeoning literature on the history of Thai law, and may encourage greater interest in "death studies" in Thailand.

* Pacific Affairs *

Pearson presents a compelling study of medico-legal practices and legal subjectivity in an environment characterized by limited sovereignty and transnational flows of expertise, while at the same time giving space to subaltern voices. This book is a noteworthy contribution to studies of medicine, law, society and politics in the colonial and semi-colonial worlds.

* The British Journal of the History of Science *



Book Information
ISBN 9781501740152
Author Trais Pearson
Format Hardback
Page Count 252
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 24mm