This book explores the relationships between matrilineal, Islamic and state law, and investigates the dynamics of legal pluralism, governance and property relationships.

1. Towards an anthropological understanding of political and legal change; 2. The pre-colonial nagari; 3. Minangkabau under colonial government; 4. Japanese occupation, independence and postcolonial transformation until 1983; 5. Centralised government at its zenith; 6. Reformasi: constitutional reforms and regional autonomy; 7. Creating new nagari structures; 8. The return to the nagari: smooth transitions; 9. Uneasy transformations; 10. Governing the village; 11. New dynamics in property rights; 12. Never ending disputes; 13. Property law reconstituted - uncertainty perpetuated; 14. Old issues revisited: adat, Islam and Minangkabau identity politics; 15. Decentralisation, the transformation of the nagari and the dynamics of legal pluralism: some conclusions.

Franz von Benda-Beckmann is a research affiliate of the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany. Until 2012, he co-headed the Project Group Legal Pluralism, with Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, at this institute. He is an honorary professor of the universities of Leipzig and Halle.