Abstract

LEAL, Alejandra. Bureaucracy, justice and legal pluralism: an exploration concerning spaces of power in Oaxaca. Alteridades [online]. 2006, vol.16, n.31, pp.39-48. ISSN 2448-850X.

This article presents an ethnographic approach to the Indigenous Defense Procuracy in Oaxaca, an institution that embodies a dual aspect of the State. On the one hand, it is the expression of a State that promotes legal pluralism and the defense of indigenous rights. On the other hand, it is the materialization of a State that perpetuates the defenselessness of Oaxacan Indians through a cluster of corrupt practices, arbitrary abuses, disorganization and inefficiency. Based on ethnographic work in this institution, this work approaches this apparent contradiction, arguing that ambiguity and disorder are constitutive of the State and of the ways it establishes its domination. Through the ambiguity and illegibility of its own discourses and practices the State introduces the promise or anticipation of justice, while at the same time it shatters its fulfillment.

Keywords : State; indigenous rights; legal pluralism; Indigenous Defense Procuracy; Oaxaca.

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