In recent times, interest in the legal history of the indigenous peoples of Latin America has grown. On the other hand, legal historiography tends to address the history of indigenous law without paying sufficient attention to its earliest period—that is, the period prior to the European colonization of the Americas. The aim of this symposium is to analyze and debate the causes of this situation, reflect on the possibility of overcoming it, define relevant research topics in precolonial law, and propose or refine methodologies for its study. The symposium’s objective will be pursued from an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspective. Legal historians, historians, ethnohistorians, ethnologists, anthropologists, archaeologists and other specialists are therefore invited to participate.
Papers (case studies, comparative or synthesis works, theoretical-methodological contributions) are requested to address one or more of the following issues and questions.
1) In what ways can research on precolonial law enrich universal and comparative legal history, legal science, and the social sciences and humanities?
2) Why are certain specific topics of precolonial legal history relevant, and how can they be examined?
3) Is it even possible to speak of the existence of law in the precolonial period? If so, in what sense: as a normative order, a normative knowledge, or a social practice? Are there emic concepts of precolonial law? Is it possible to distinguish precolonial law from other normative systems of the time, such as religion? In what forms did precolonial law manifest itself? Through what social and power mechanisms was it applied? What role did rituals or judicial processes play, for example, in its application?
4) Methodology for research on precolonial law based on written sources. Is it possible, through critical analysis of these sources, to determine whether certain legal concepts, terms, norms, relationships and institutions mentioned in them are indigenous, Spanish (European, Christian), or mixed? In what ways did the authors of these sources distort, consciously or unconsciously, the image of precolonial law they conveyed?
5) Methodology for research on precolonial law based on the authentic means of expression of indigenous peoples. Did precolonial visual art have certain legal aspects? Do Aztec codices or Maya epigraphy, for example, provide any information about law?
6) Methodology for research on precolonial law based on material culture. In what ways can archaeology contribute to knowledge of precolonial law? In what ways did the meanings and messages conveyed by material objects (for example, monumental architecture and prestige or luxury artifacts) shape people’s mentality and behavior?
7) Methodology for research on the evolution of precolonial law since the arrival of Europeans.
