This chapter aims here to encourage greater dialogue between the regional literature on legal pluralism and analyses of the role played by various non-state forms of law or para-legalities in securing order in contemporary Latin America. Although they consider different processes, making reference to distinct empirical and conceptual problems, the study of legal pluralism in the region has much to gain from engaging with contemporary anthropological debates on sovereignty and i/illegality in order to consider not just subaltern legal orders and their relationship with the state, but more broadly the changing nature of “plural constellations of governance” (Benda Beckmann and Eckert 2009: 3).
In Rachel Sieder, Karina Ansolabehere and Tatiana Alfonso (eds), The Handbook of Law and Society in Latin America. New York: Routledge (2019): 71-85. ISBN: 978-1138184459