Fronteras porosas: diálogos y silencios entre antropología y derecho comparado

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 mostcommonly used in legal comparison. It argues that functionalism in comparative law resonateswith 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 lawand capitalism. A case study of the Uitoto people in the Colombian Amazon illustrates how indigenouslegal orders are reconfigured by extraction, colonization, and state intervention. The articleconcludes with a proposal for situated, ethnographic, and historically informed comparative law.