“Justice is conflict,” writes Stuart Hampshire (2000), pointing to the irreducibility of certain conflicts to consensus. Justice lies in the operation of “public reason,” argues John Rawls (1999), claiming that citizens can agree on a minimal central set of principles. I find Hampshire persuasive, but I also find Rawls's challenge important. If social groups differ on the most fundamental political issues, how can they possibly coexist in a political community?

Irreducible pluralism

In the previous chapters, I have charted varied Indonesian efforts to coexist through sustained public reasoning, a restless, endless process of deliberation, intended sometimes to accommodate others, sometimes to exclude them. I began in Isak, a small enough place, where if there were to be normative resting-places in large nation-states, we might expect to find one. But Isak people, like their fellow citizens elsewhere, find themselves grappling with criss-crossing sets of norms, some of which have the backing of the state (and thus can be said to be “law”), others of which have their normative anchors in the past or the local present. The Isak case of the disputed houses, in which Aman Kerna created a web of complicated subterfuges and hedges to try and satisfy, or at least appease, everyone, dead ancestors and future judges alike, reminds us that village life is not normatively simple.

It also reminds us that law, dispute resolution backed by state authority, is only one element in a complex field of norms, feelings, livelihoods, and power.