Field Theory and Colonialism: Indirect Colonial Situation as a Social Field in Egypt (1882–1922)

ABSTRACT This paper argues that Egypt under British rule (1882–1922) constituted a field of power in which the local state of Egypt and the British administration competed to dominate three key subfields to ensure control over a contested territory: the modern courts system, policing, and agricultural production. The paper employs the concept of colonial field to explain the contingencies and hybridity of modern legal system under colonial situations. Even though the British administration occupied a superior position of power, its control over the local state did not persist consistently because the local state managed to reappropriate its shares of power from one subfield to another. Therefore, weakness in a particular subfield did not necessarily lead to failure in other domains of power. This paper shows that the local state of Egypt redeployed the symbolic capital of modern courts, physical capital of policing, and the economic capital of agricultural production as a bulwark against the British interventions. Given the relative autonomy of the local state, the paper also reveals how Egypt experienced indirect colonialism within a broader context of imperial contestations.