Yonglin Jiang

This project explores the dynamic process of negotiating justice during the last century of Ming dynasty China (1368-1644). Drawing on a large body of little-explored late-Ming local court records, it examines how justice was constructed in local adjudication and how justice construction reflected and facilitated social change. This study argues that as creating actors, magistrates and litigants together defined their socio-legal situations and created "situated justice"—a "fair" yet unpredictable and particularistic ruling. During the process of justice construction, while law enforcement in local communities both defended the dynastic order and facilitated social change, changing society also invested the dynastic legal system with new meanings.

Drawing on a large body of little-explored local court records, this project examines how justice was constructed in local adjudication and how justice construction and social change affected each other at times of drastic social change during the last century of Ming dynasty China (1368-1644). Using the perspectives of “encountered cultures” and “negotiated order,” it argues that as creating actors, magistrates and litigants together defined their socio-legal situations and created “situated justice”—a contingent and particularistic legal result based on concrete circumstances. In justice negotiation, while local adjudication defended the dynastic order and facilitated social change, changing society also invested the legal system with new meanings.