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

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.

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.