"This book provides a rhetorical analysis of some key legal situations that illustrate some of the problematics of colonial and neocolonial situations. A series of case studies from several continents is used to illustrate how colonial rules and regulations have been "co-produced" by elites and subalterns. This book looks at how both material and symbolic resources have been mobilized at key historical moments to justify the appropriation of land, mineral wealth, labor, and even genetic resources. These key colonial histories continue to influence many of the economic, political, social, and legal relationships that exist between "developed" and "underdeveloped" countries."--BOOK JACKET.