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Early anthropologists shaped the parameters constituting the presence of customary law in the Mediterranean and Balkan Peninsula. Eurocentric epistemologies acknowledged customary law in this area as an honour-driven approach to correcting an injustice occurring in ‘developing’ societies wherein legal and social infrastructure is absent and corruption prevails. The same epistemologies were applied to explain the ‘customary law’ legacy in Cretan Mountain villages (southeast part of Greece), portraying Cretans’ profound disregard of authority as competitive performances of masculinity and honour-driven demeanours. Nonetheless, knowledge from northern metropoles continues to impact current research on the island, receiving zero to little scrutiny by local researchers on why Cretans prefer their traditions of justice and control over institutionalised procedures. This paper examines the reasoning behind Cretans’ proclivity to a customary approach to justice beyond the metropolitan understanding of customary law. It explores why people in Mountain Crete follow different practices from the Western-influenced justice procedures the Greek state applies despite the lack of legal affirmation and the demoralisation of customary justice practices. Re-evaluating the presence of customary practices of justice in an island that geographically belongs to the Global North, yet the Cretan cultural values and social environment are closely connected with the ideas and epistemologies of the Global South, will advocate reconsidering the presence of customary justice in non-northern contexts and rethinking the impact of universalising justice notions. The chapter will use the findings to contribute to the democratisation of knowledge production and attempt to decolonise the scholarship of customary law in Southern and Eastern European countries and suggest the inclusion in Southern epistemologies of cultures of the European peripheries that have endured the legacy of a ‘silent’ colonialism, contributing in that way to the further theorisation of colonialism.

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‘The(ir) Law Has No Rule Here’: Cretan Traditions of Justice and Crime Control as the Antidote to the Colonial Justice of the Metropoles

  • 动态工具书词条

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Leah Koumentaki

摘要

Early anthropologists shaped the parameters constituting the presence of customary law in the Mediterranean and Balkan Peninsula. Eurocentric epistemologies acknowledged customary law in this area as an honour-driven approach to correcting an injustice occurring in ‘developing’ societies wherein legal and social infrastructure is absent and corruption prevails. The same epistemologies were applied to explain the ‘customary law’ legacy in Cretan Mountain villages (southeast part of Greece), portraying Cretans’ profound disregard of authority as competitive performances of masculinity and honour-driven demeanours. Nonetheless, knowledge from northern metropoles continues to impact current research on the island, receiving zero to little scrutiny by local researchers on why Cretans prefer their traditions of justice and control over institutionalised procedures. This paper examines the reasoning behind Cretans’ proclivity to a customary approach to justice beyond the metropolitan understanding of customary law. It explores why people in Mountain Crete follow different practices from the Western-influenced justice procedures the Greek state applies despite the lack of legal affirmation and the demoralisation of customary justice practices. Re-evaluating the presence of customary practices of justice in an island that geographically belongs to the Global North, yet the Cretan cultural values and social environment are closely connected with the ideas and epistemologies of the Global South, will advocate reconsidering the presence of customary justice in non-northern contexts and rethinking the impact of universalising justice notions. The chapter will use the findings to contribute to the democratisation of knowledge production and attempt to decolonise the scholarship of customary law in Southern and Eastern European countries and suggest the inclusion in Southern epistemologies of cultures of the European peripheries that have endured the legacy of a ‘silent’ colonialism, contributing in that way to the further theorisation of colonialism.