EDGES – Symposium Brussels

Université libre de Bruxelles

Centre d’histoire du droit et d’anthropologie juridique

21-22 May 2026

Claiming justice: Indigenous normative knowledge, methods and new legal techniques in Latin America

Tejiendo Justicia : Conocimientos Normativos Indígenas, Metodologías y Nuevas Técnicas Jurídicas en América Latina

Tecendo a Justiça: Conhecimentos Normativos Indígenas, Metodologias e Novas Técnicas Jurídicas na América Latina

Work Package 3 – Edges project

Claiming Justice: Indigenous Normative Knowledge, Methods and New Legal Techniques in Latin America

Tejiendo Justicia : Conocimientos Normativos Indígenas, Metodologías y Nuevas Técnicas Jurídicas en América Latina

Tecendo a Justiça: Conhecimentos Normativos Indígenas, Metodologias e Novas Técnicas Jurídicas na América Latina

Brussels symposium

Claiming justice: Indigenous normative knowledge, methods and new legal techniques in Latin America

This symposium, organized within the framework of the EDGES project, aims to discuss the main contemporary directions currently shaping struggles for justice grounded in Indigenous normative knowledge in Latin America. By addressing the epistemological and methodological challenges that the study of these dynamics raises, it seeks to contribute to the development of more robust, informed, and participatory socio-legal knowledge.

Since the colonial conquest and the promulgation of the Papal Bulls Inter Caetera, law and rights have played a central role in (post)colonial dynamics of power and knowledge in Latin America. These dynamics continue to produce and legitimize profound asymmetries between official legal systems and Indigenous normative knowledge, even when the former formally integrate or recognize Indigenous rights, principles, or institutions.

In their dominant form, legal frameworks—characterized by individualistic, binary, exclusive, adversarial, naturalistic, and bureaucratic approaches, as well as materially and socially costly procedures—require significant mediation and resources to be accessed by marginalized groups and for their various epistemological standpoints to be systematically taken into account. Over the long term, dominant legal and epistemic frameworks have also deeply permeated academic historical, anthropological, and legal accounts, making it difficult to apprehend Indigenous normative knowledge in comparative, participatory, and comprehensive ways. Meanwhile, rights discourse and legal techniques have remained fundamental and historical components of Indigenous struggles for social and multispecies justice, contributing significantly to processes of democratic renewal. This complexity has been highlighted by scholars from different disciplines and diverse geographical backgrounds, yet without being able to propose analytical and normative insights that could meaningfully serve both scientific and legal agendas through participatory and robust methods.

In Latin America, transregional dynamics — such as constitutionalization, internationalization, and strategic litigation — have sustained transformations of official law regarding Indigenous rights at international, regional, constitutional, and national levels. However, these developments are by nature fragmented, fragile, and vulnerable to backlash, as evidenced by recent political shifts in several countries where right-wing and pro-extractivist governments have (re)gained power and moved to weaken the protective dimensions of legal frameworks. These tensions are particularly visible in relation to the right to free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples, land rights, the emergence of the rights of nature and biocultural rights (notably in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia), and the consolidation of intercultural public policies in justice administration, environmental decision-making, and health and education systems.

While these developments must be understood as the result of sustained efforts by Indigenous peoples and their allies — not only to substantially reshape the content of official law, but also to ensure that Indigenous normative knowledge is properly understood, integrated, and addressed within legal forums and decision-making procedures that are by nature fragmented and transnational — other economic and public actors, among them legal professionals, may, through their everyday use of legal categories and standardized discourses, contribute to the reduction and transformation of Indigenous standpoints and lived experiences. In doing so, they contribute to epistemic injustice, when they are not actively criminalizing Indigenous Peoples.

How can these pitfalls and shortcomings be addressed? The symposium will explore and connect two complementary levels of analysis: on the one hand, by strengthening the study of the mechanisms through which Indigenous normative knowledge and law-making is articulated with official law, such as free, prior, and informed consent, judicialization, land rights, and intercultural policies; and on the other hand, by critically reflecting on what it would imply to develop and foster legal techniques based on Indigenous methods across all branches of law — designed not only to formally recognize Indigenous norms and rights, but also to create the practical and material conditions necessary to prevent testimonial and hermeneutical injustice.

Over two days, the symposium will bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers working at the intersection of several disciplines (anthropology, law, political science, and history), alongside Indigenous leaders and community members. Their exchanges will contribute, through joint and collaborative work, to the relational development of research methods and knowledge. The symposium will be preceded by a one-day mini-course on various topics related to Indigenous rights, aimed at students, activists, and scholars.

The communication will be mainly in Spanish and Portuguese. Some contribution will be in French and in English.

Program

Day I, Thursday, 21.05.2026

Location : Av. F.D. Roosevelt 42, Ground Floor, Auditorium R.42.2.103

• 9:00    Arrival, Check-in, Coffee, Tea, Wayusa

• 9:15    Welcome and Opening, Bienvenida y Apertura, Boas-vindas e abertura – Prof. Pierre Klein, Dean of the Faculty of Law and Criminology (Université libre de Bruxelles)

• 9:30   Session 1

[Indigenous research Methodologies and Legal knowledge : Reframing Legal Practices Through Relationality]

Presidencia de mesa por Maïté Maskens (Antropóloga, Université libre de Bruxelles)

Metodos indígenas de investigación: trayectorias de investigación en la UFAM con enfasis en los derechos territoriales y más-que-humanos – Rosijane  Fernandes Moura – Tukano – Universidade Federal do Amazonas (Brasil) 

El derecho propio como herramienta metodológica y transformadora – Nelson Cucuñame – Universidad Autónoma Indígena Intercultural (Colombia) and Nina Bries Silva– European University Institute / Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve (Bélgica)

Narrar e Cantar as Leis de Multiseres -vitalizando os lugares-chave ecológicos – Pirjo Kriistina Virtanen  – University of Helsinki (Finland)

• 12:30   Lunch Break  (Atrium R42.2) Walk in the “Bois de la Cambre”

• 14:30   Session 2

  Derechos y Tierra :  Las múltiples facetas de las pertenencias 

[ Land, Rights and The Many Ways of Belonging]

Presidencia de mesa por Camila Ferreira Marinelli (Antropóloga;University of St Andrews)

Derecho a la ciudad: agencia y memoria indígena en Buenos Aires. Apropiación y legalidad de prácticas y espacios públicos (2004-2015) – Aymara Choque – Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina)

El catastro y sus márgenes: propiedad, posesión, usos y costumbres en las tierras altas de los Andes peruanos – Céline Morançay  – Université libre de Bruxelles (Bélgica)

Indigenous Normative Knowledge and Ownership in Colonial Latin America, 16th-18th century – Manuel Bastias Saavedra  – Leibniz University Hannover (Alemania)

• 16 :00 – 16 :30 Coffee Break (Atrium R42.2) Walk in the “Bois de la Cambre”

A terra não nos pertenece, nos que pertencemos a ela – Almires Martins Machado  –  Universidade Federal do Para (Brasil)

Colonisation et exclusion en Guyane : la lutte des peuples autochtones – Éric Louis Yopoto Kali’na (Guyane) & Pierre Auzerau – University of Helsinki (Finland)

• 17:30            Closing of the first day

Cena para los panelistas en el CHDAJ a partir de las 18:30  (hora exacta y eventual actividad suplementaria por confirmar)

Day II Friday 22.05.2026

Location : Av. F.D. Roosevelt 42, Ground Floor, Auditorium R.42.2.110

• 9:15    Coffee, Tea, Wayusa

• 9:30   Session 3

Consentimiento previo, libre e informado : entre multiculturalismo neoliberal, prácticas de corazonamientos y justicia multispecies

[Free, prior and informed consent : between neoliberal multiculturalism, heartfelt thinking and multispecies justice]   

Presidencia de mesa por Nina Bries Silva (Jurista y antropóloga,Université Catholique de Louvain)

¿Con (con)sentimento o no?: Corazonamientos decoloniales plurales sobre el derecho de propiedad desde la Selva Viviente (Kawsak Sacha) – Mario Yaucén Remache – Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku (Ecuador)&Jenny García Ruales  –  Marburg University (Alemania)

El desafio de la construcción del Dialogo intercultural – Marcelo Fernando Lezcano – Observatorio Regional de Derechos Humanos, Argentina y Pueblos Indígenas (Argentina)

• 10:30-11:00  Coffee Break

La disputa judicial para el cumplimiento del Paradigma de la autodeterminación territorial de los pueblos indígenas ante proyectos extractivos – Raquel Yrigoyen Fajardo – Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú & Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Sociedad (Perú)

• 11:30   Session 4

La interculturalidad a prueba : justicias en tensiones

[ Interculturality put to the test: justice in tensions]

Presidencia de mesa por Odile Dua (Jurista, Université libre de Bruxelles)

Diálogo intercultural en procesos penales: Un análisis cruzado desde  auto-etnografías colaborativas – Myrian Gualinga Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku – Organización Kuriñampi) & Barbara Truffin  –  Université libre de Bruxelles (Bélgica)

Defensa especializada y abogacía comunitaria en el Sur de Chile: Usos de las normatividades mapuche en las Defensas del Sur – Fabien Le Bonniec  Universidad de La Frontera (Chile)

• 12:30 – 14:30  Lunch break

Fabriquer des formes d’écoute alternatives: possibilités et limites des jugements in situ au regard des cosmovisions autochtones – Fiona  Argenta – Université libre de Bruxelles (Bélgica)

Conocimiento marítimo raizal y razonamiento jurídico archipelágico en el Caribe – Mateo Cordoba Cardenas – Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)

Catálogo florístico colaborativo con la Asociación de Productores Indígenas de la Tierra Caititu (APITC) en la Amazonía Brasileña – Markus Schall Enk  – Université libre de Bruxelles (Bélgica)

Entre antropología, justicia multiespecie y derechos indígenas: formas de coexistencia y cosmopolítica entre los pueblos Piripkura y Munduruku – Thiago Mota Cardoso (UFAM) – Universidade Federal do Amazonas (Brasil) 

• 16:30                      Conclusiones / Coffee

*

*                  *

Cena para los panelistas en el CHDAJ a partir de las 18:30  (hora exacta y eventual actividad suplementaria por confirmar)

Thematical sessions

The workshop is divided in four sessions. The first one is titled Indigenous research Methodologies and Legal knowledge : Reframing Legal Practices Through Relationality. It will take place on Thursday 21 May in the morning.  Judicializationof contemporary Indigenous struggles has attracted close attention from socio-legal and anthropology scholarship over the past two decades. In many ways, the visibility of Indigenous Peoples’ rights through legal provisions and judicial processes has gone hand with hand, and has often simultaneously documented, their violation. This paradox has led several authors to speak of the “cunning of the recognition”, in which judicialization of struggles works as a double-edged sword (Sieder 2010, Kirsch 2012, Gilbert 2021, Melo 2019, Pataxó 2022, Cloud & Le Bonniec 2019). Scholarship has also highlighted the importance of articulating global and local understanding of rights, using Sally Engle Merry concept of vernacularization (Merry 2006) to show how local appropriation of human rights reveals a key aspect of how globalisation and legal pluralism operate in culturally diverse societies (Sierra & Lemos Igreja 2020). The contributions to the first panel takes distance from this literature and present ethnographic reappraisalof the materialities, signs, and meanings that have been erased or marginalized by judicial decision‑making and classical legal processes and their accounts. Contributors are reflecting on different methods, especially Indigenous methods and research praxis (such as storytelling, digital documents, and Indigenous texts), and are selecting those that appear, on an ad-hoc basis, to offer the most effective options, in regard with the principles of relationality and relational accountability, for the operative reintegration of Indigenous epistemological and material standpoints into legally oriented analysis and communication.

The second session addresses the articulation between land, rights and relationality and is titled Land, Rights and The Many Ways of Belonging. It will take place in the afternoon of Thursday 21. Since the 1970s, law has undergone a series of major upheavals. At the heart of it stands the questioning of state-centered, legalistic, and Eurocentric paradigms regardin land rights (Anzoategui 1992; Clavero 1995; Tau Hespanha 2012). The dialogue with history, and in particular with the history of European empires in the modern era, has played a decisive role in these changes. By distancing themselves from the above-mentioned approaches, the concepts of property, jurisdiction, custom and usage, possession, and corporation carved out a place for themselves in historiography (Cardim and Herzog 2012; Bastias Saavedra 2024). Echoing this analytical concern, a similar line of reflection has been developed by anthropologists and Indigenous scholars regarding the insufficiency of labelling Indigenous institutions and normativities through the lens of dominant positive law. What may be lacking at this stage is a proper systematization of the many ways of articulating property regimes from the multiple material and epistemological Indigenous standpoints. This panel brings together researchers and leaders who addresses the many faces of properties and the possibility, through Indigenous methods and praxis, to propose other normative models.

The third session engages a discussion behind the politics of neoliberal multiculturalism and is titled Free, prior and informed consent : between neoliberal multiculturalism,  heartfelt thinking and multispecies justice. It will take place in the morning of Friday 22. For decades, scholars have underlined that multiculturalism and recognition policies function as strategies of governmentality, in which “collective rights, granted as compensatory measures to ‘disadvantaged’ cultural groups, are an integral part of neoliberal ideology” (e.a. Hale 2005 :12, Rodríguez Garavito & Baquero Díaz 2020; Sierra & Lemos Igreja 2020). The case of the right to free, prior, and informed consent is particularly illustrative of this tension, as well as of the corresponding lack of coherence affecting the fragmented body of legal provisions governing it. It is not the relational, normative, and often‑described fragmented semiotic nature of Indigenous normative knowledge (García Ruales, forthcoming) that constitutes an obstacle to legal consolidation, but rather the production and interpretation of multiple layers of official legal provisions that move in incompatible directions. This dynamic has ultimately facilitated the reassertion of the extractivist paradigm, reducing rights under the veneer of multiculturalism. In line with a more pragmatist tradition, socio‑legal scholars have shown how, within this legal minefield, Indigenous peoples, local communities, and activists continue to struggle to substantively insert and assemble these perspectives into the regulation of their modes of existence and the constraints they face. They identify and, in practice, continually repair the intrinsic hybrid nature of legal struggles and legal innovation, which is largely disavowed by canonical legal thinking (Rodríguez Garavito & Baquero Díaz 2020).The initiatives of various Indigenous communities to produce and disseminate “their own law” of free, prior, and informed consent—assembling different sources of law, as in the case of the Sarayaku People in Ecuador (see Yaucén Remache and García Ruales), or the development of local consultation protocols in Brazil and Argentina—constitute genuine legal experiences that warrant analysis in their own right. The participatory methods through which they are produced and disseminated could also be conceptually stabilized as legal techniques, capable of being mobilized by other communities confronted with the pitfalls and ambiguities of official law, as proposed by Yaucén Remache and García Ruales (2025) through their legal conceptualization of “corazonar” (heartfelt thinking).

The last and fourth session addresses contemporary venues where justice can be redefined through entanglements of diverse normative knowledge and is titled  Interculturality put to the test: justice in tensions. Among legal anthropologists Sierra and Lemos Igreja underline that juridification emerges at the intersection of legal forms that involve different ontological and epistemological foundationsand point to the ability of IndigenousPeoples “to re-signify these norms through intercultural dialogues, in order to highlight their own understandings of justice and pursue their own emancipatory aims” (Sierra & Lemos Igreja 2020: 32). Interculturality has being conceptually theorized by Catherine Walsh and “translated” through various (non)-institutional mechanisms in Latin American States. This panel will use case studies to document and assess the operational basis and scope of different instances of ongoing intercultural dialogues with the objective of  elaborating a model of normative test relying upon the idea of “reversal” of the burden of the proof, as a communicational requirement and through indigenous methods.

Organizational committee : Fiona Argenta, Vaïtea Baillif, Nina Bries, Mateo Cordoba, Odile Dua, Markus Enk, Jenny García Ruales, Nils Lepennetier, Maïté Maskens, Céline Morançay  & Barbara Truffin

With the support of FNRS,  DOCIP, EDGES project, contact group of sociolegal studies of FNRS, Centre d’histoire du droit et d’anthropologie juridique, Université libre de Bruxelles