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Abstract

This paper examines judicial precedent as a form of local agency and strategic resistance in the context of the incorporation of the Kazakh steppe into the administrative and legal system of the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. At the intersection of customary and imperial legal orders, the steppe emerged as a space of negotiation between local populations and imperial authorities, where customary law, bureaucratic procedures, and judicial practices interacted to produce a hybrid legal order. Rather than a simple displacement of local norms by imperial legislation, a complex dynamic of interaction, reinterpretation, and accommodation between multiple legal regimes took shape.

From the perspective of Kazakh actors, judicial precedent was not an abstract legal procedure but a concrete instrument for influencing authority and maintaining control within their communities. Through participation in legal processes, they defended their jurisdiction, challenged decisions, negotiated between imperial and local norms, and preserved locally grounded conceptions of justice. Customary norms and traditional mechanisms of dispute resolution functioned as tools of “legal resistance,” enabling local actors to shape bureaucratic procedures, contest rulings, and protect the interests of families, clans, and communities.

Archival materials, including the “Yazykbaev case” and the “Karakoi case” from the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA), illustrate concrete mechanisms of interaction between imperial and local judicial systems. In the Yazykbaev case, the imperial court attempted to overturn a decision of the local court; however, local actors, relying on customary norms, successfully defended the authority of local justice. In contrast, the Karakoi case resulted in the exile of participants by imperial decision; nevertheless, local populations, including Kazakhs and other steppe inhabitants, continued to rely predominantly on local courts and customary procedures. These mechanisms were familiar, accessible, and perceived as more legitimate, as they incorporated recognizable forms of sanction without rigid bureaucratic formalities.

These cases demonstrate that judicial precedent functioned as a mechanism of both infrastructural and everyday resistance, perceived within the steppe as a means of defending local interests and preserving legal autonomy. The findings suggest that the nineteenth-century Kazakh steppe should be understood as a space of a hybrid legal order, where local populations actively negotiated with imperial authority and developed strategies to sustain their own jurisdiction. From an internal perspective, the legal field was not merely an instrument of imperial power but an arena of everyday resistance, institutional hybridity, and the enactment of local conceptions of justice.