‘Emancipation’ or ‘regulation’? Law, globalization and indigenous peoples’ rights in post-war Guatemala

‘There is no law that justifies the existence of the board of elders’. Community service and legal pluralism in Santa María, Guatemala

“…Law is constantly reshaped in a dialectic between hegemonic projections and counter-hegemonic actions within a multiplicity of power relations (Sieder 2011;de Sousa Santos and Rodr ıguez-Garavito 2005;Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson 2000). Religious transformations, professionalization of the judicial field and identifications along urban and rural lines have created different groups within the municipality that, on the basis of partially overlapping identifications, contest the position of the cargo system as the hegemonic social organization in the municipality, on the one hand, and the globalization of legal frameworks on the other.…”

“…In this article, I have explored how indigenous people engage in processes of reconstructing legal frameworks 'on the ground' (Wilson 1997;Sieder 2011). Through a case study analysis of the dissolution of a community service called 'The Mayores and Alguaciles of the Corridor' I have shown how an appreciation of local dynamics and meanings of indigeneity is crucial for understanding how global legal pluralism, including the recognition of indigenous rights, can have an outcome as paradoxical as the dissolution of practices that are considered as 'indigenous' within these frameworks.…”

“…How people identify as 'indigenous', I argue, shapes the ways they relate to indigenous rights as context of a variety of power relations. Such an approach will provide insight into how local actors engage in processes of constructing legal frameworks 'from below' (Wilson 1997;Sieder 2011) in different ways. First, it will help understand how new legal frameworks constitute (instrumental) social categories in Guatemala.…”

“…Since the 1980s, globalization has created a context within which different legal systems have become available for people that had previously been excluded from such frameworks (Sieder 2011;Berman 2009). Globalization of legal orders has created space to claim rights to 'authentic' forms of governance, and has also provided frameworks that constitute a basis for rejecting À on the grounds of human rights À ancient uses and customs as seen from a human rights perspective (Tamanaha 2008, 387).…”

Sociedad, epistemología y metodología en Boaventura de Sousa Santos

“…Por una parte, es posible observar un creciente uso de las construcciones conceptuales del pensador portugués en relación con investigaciones en diversos ámbitos de las ciencias sociales y las humanidades, como por ejemplo en los ámbitos de educación (Passos, 2014;Baker, 2012;Streck y Adams 2012;Marques, 2008;Anibal, 2010), derecho (Umut y Ballesteros, 2014;Barreto, 2014;Gutierrez 2013;Sieder, 2011;Álvarez, 2010;Guarino, 2009) y sociología (Santos et al, 2015;Paredes, 2014;Machado et al, 2012). Esta influencia abarca también investigaciones de corte histórico (Sarmento, 2015) y de estudios sociales sobre salud (Nascimento et al, 2013).…”