Work

The dispute for other legal knowledges in the judicial field: Indigenous territorial ontologies and mining extractivism in Guerrero, Mexico

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: The Mè’phàà people in Guerrero, Mexico, won a judgment against open‐pit mining by which they asserted their sacred and integral conceptions of territory as part of their collective rights. Through the sentence, they avoided the dispossession of their lands and life project. This article analyzes how discourses around indigenous territorial ontologies were brought into play through anthropological expert reports. We are interested in highlighting the challenges and limits of judicial knowledge when disputing different rationalities and epistemologies regarding territory, grievances, and rights within the legal space. We document the production of non‐Western legal knowledge in the judicial field, revealing indigenous territory visions that confront the extractive projects. We focus our ethnographic gaze on the cultural and legal translation of the knowledge of the Mè’phàà people to analyze the scope and limits of a dialogue of knowledges and its effects on the judicialization and the politicization of the indigenous struggle.

Source: The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology

DOI: 10.1111/jlca.12746

Authors: Yacotzin Bravo Espinosa, María Teresa Sierra Camacho

Institutions: Universidad Iberoamericana, Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social

Language: English

Topic: Indigenous Peoples' Rights and Law

Subfield: Law

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: bronze

Funder: Government of the United Kingdom