Decolonising Legal Pluralism, Decentring Epistemological Paradigms

An introduction

Autores

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.2159

Palavras-chave:

Decolonisation, legal pluralism, coloniality, customary law, epistemological pluriversality

Resumo

This special issue advocates for critically examining the epistemological foundations of different arrangements of legal pluralism, particularly “classical” culture- or custom-based legal pluralism. It addresses conceptual colonial legacies and path-dependencies to further “epistemological disobedience” and socio-political decolonisation. The individual contributions highlight and challenge the rigidification of collective identities entrenched in binary logics reaching back to the European Enlightenment, and other dimensions of coloniality embedded in hegemonic modernist, Anglo-Eurocentric legal frameworks. Decentring dominant normative and identitarian paradigms and emphasising dialogical engagement with diverse normative rationalities, all six contributions to the special issue examine the potential of legal pluralism to foster pluriversal approaches to law. They foreground various kinds of interplay between plural legal orders and illustrate distinct colonial power dynamics in different locales that have continued until the present day. Collectively, they call for reimagining legal pluralism as a tool for emancipation, transcending (post)colonial statist epistemologies to advance decolonial, pluriversal futures.

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Biografia do Autor

Martin Ramstedt, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Extraordinary Professor for Social Anthropology at Martin Luther University and research associate at the “Law and Anthropology” Department of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. Email: martin.ramstedt@ethnologie.uni-halle.de

Katrin Seidel, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Private Docent and Senior Scholar at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Business at Just Transition Center (JTC) at Martin Luther University; research associate at the ‘Law and Anthropology’ Department of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Halle/Saale. Email: katrin.seidel@jura.uni-halle.de

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Publicado

2025-10-01

Como Citar

Ramstedt, M. e Seidel, K. (2025) “Decolonising Legal Pluralism, Decentring Epistemological Paradigms: An introduction”, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 15(5), p. 1613–1621. doi: 10.35295/osls.iisl.2159.