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Sumary
This essay wonders how to understand and strengthen non-state legal systems. It begins by
emphasizing that non-state legal systems do exist in Latin America and explores why, in most cases,
they are invalidated by academia. It suggests that this invalidation occurs because non-state legal
systems question the juridical-political dogma that affirms that the State’s law rests and is
legitimated in the will of society’s members. This essay furthers that non-state legal systems are
a manifestation of what Michel Foucalt called the discourse of political historicism, which claims
that the origin of the institutions of power, including the Law, is not found in the aforementioned
will, but in history’s confrontations of power. In this framework, this essay proposes Foucalt’s
genealogical project and Paulo Freire’s “dialogue of understandings” as tools that can contribute
towards the study of submitted knowledge and the strengthening of non-state legal systems. |