Custom, courts, and class formation: constructing the hegemonic process through the petty sessions of a southeastern Irish parish, 1828-1884

This exploration of hegemony, law, and politics attempts to expand recent a nthropological approaches to hegemony and the law both topically and tempor ally. Specifically, I try to insert notions of coercion, class formation, a gency, and political process into what have largely been cultural approache s to hegemony; I do so by exploring the workings of a local court through t ime. This court, in the context of a colonial state, brought together numer ous agents (landlords, laborers, farmers, and retailers) who had conflictin g and also sometimes converging economic and political interests and unders tandings. Through their interaction, the court became a theater, forum, and arena while, over time, it proved simultaneously to be both a civilizing d evice and a way of reproducing local class experience.