Permeable borders: dialogues and silences between anthropology and comparative law
No. 15 (2025-11-08)Author(s)
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Francisco Torres-CamachoUniversidad de los AndesORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1148-6689
Abstract
This article defines and explores the porous boundaries between comparative law and anthropology, analyzing how historical debates in this social science have shaped the methods most
commonly used in legal comparison. It argues that functionalism in comparative law resonates
with Franz Boas’ notion of functional equivalence, but that this lineage remains largely unknown to legal scholars. Through a historical critique of David, Zweigert, and Kötz, the article shows how canonical typologies reproduced colonial hierarchies that had previously been challenged within anthropology. It then examines the critical interventions of Frankenberg and Ruskola, situating their emphasis on ethnocentrism within broader anthropological disputes over closed and relational conceptions of culture. Drawing on Clastres, the article extends the analytical horizon of ethnocentrism to ethnocide, emphasizing the material destruction of normative worlds under state law
and capitalism. A case study of the Uitoto people in the Colombian Amazon illustrates how indigenous
legal orders are reconfigured by extraction, colonization, and state intervention. The article
concludes with a proposal for situated, ethnographic, and historically informed comparative law.
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