An understanding of law and its efficacy in Latin America demands concepts distinct from the hegemonic notions of "rule of law" which have dominated debates on law, politics and society, and that recognize the diversity of situations and contexts characterizing the region.
The Routledge Handbook of Law and Society in Latin America presents cutting-edge analysis of the central theoretical and applied areas of enquiry in socio-legal studies in the region by leading figures in the study of law and society from Latin America, North America and Europe. Contributors argue that scholarship about Latin America has made vital contributions to longstanding and emerging theoretical and methodological debates on the relationship between law and society.
Key topics examined include:
- The gap between law-on-the-books and law in action
- The implications of legal pluralism and legal globalization
- The legacies of experiences of transitional justice
- Emerging forms of socio-legal and political mobilization
- Debates concerning the relationship between the legal and the illegal.
The Routledge Handbook of Law and Society in Latin America sets out new research agendas for cross-disciplinary socio-legal studies and will be of interest to those studying law, sociology of law, comparative Latin American politics, legal anthropology and development studies.
Rachel Sieder is senior research professor at the Center for Research and Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico City. She is also associate senior researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway. Her research interests include human rights, indigenous rights, social movements, indigenous law, legal anthropology, the state and violence. Her books include: ed. Demanding Justice and Security: Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralities in Latin America. (2017); ed. with John-Andrew McNeish, Gender Justice and Legal Pluralities: Latin American and African Perspectives, Routledge-Cavendish (2012); ed. with Javier Couso and Alexandra Huneeus, Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America, (2010). She has an M.A. in Latin American Studies and a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of London.
Karina Ansolabehere is a full-time researcher at the Institute of Legal Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and part time researcher at FLACSO-Mexico. She is a sociologist from the University of Buenos Aires, has a Masters in Economic Sociology from the University of General San Martin, and a Ph.D. in Research in Social Sciences with specialization in Political Sciences from FLACSO-Mexico. Her topics of interest are judicial politics, human rights, judicialization of human rights, legal cultures and political theory, with special focus on Latin America. She has taught courses on sociology of law, judicial politics, human rights and political theory. She is a member of the National Researchers System of Mexico. Ansalobehere has a degree in sociology from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences with specialization in Political Sciences from FLACSO-Mexico.
Tatiana Alfonso is an assistant professor at Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) Law School in Mexico City since 2017. Her research interests include human rights, sociology of law, sociology of race and ethnicity, sociology of development and methodologies for legal research. In her work, she explores the relation between law and social inequalities with a focus on how legal and political institutions may have distributive effects between unequal actors in society. In pursuing those interests, she has carried out research on racial discrimination and human rights, social movements and legal change, and property rights of indigenous peoples and Afrodescendant communities in Latin America. She is a psychologist and a lawyer from Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) and holds a Masters and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
