Paper short abstract:

My contribution will consist in conceiving decolonial legal anthropology as a tool for enhancing the progressive potential of the law and amplifying subaltern voices.

Paper long abstract:

What are the affordances of decoloniality for legal anthropology? In this presentation, I draw on my experience (1) teaching legal anthropology to students destined to work for International Organisations and (2) researching international legal regimes to articulate some suggestions for decolonizing our sub-discipline and for increasing its political relevance in today’s world. I argue that the main contribution of anthropology to the study of international law lies in its capacity to capture power dynamics that are hidden from view by studies that merely focus on the flat surface of ‘black letter law’. If decolonization is primarily concerned with rethinking and reframing epistemologies that preserve the Europe-centered colonial lens, a decolonial legal anthropology could consist in systematically documenting the various ways in which justice seekers around the world are both constrained and empowered by international legal processes. In conversation with Third World Approaches to International Law, anthropologists can reveal how the colonial legacies of international legal regimes manifest in specific contexts and use their White privilege to amplify voices from the Global South who bear the burden of the inequalities that such regimes tend to perpetuate. They can also disclose the ‘cracks in the system’ that could be used to further advance the cause of progressive social movements. In short, I consider decolonial legal anthropology as a tool for enhancing the progressive potential of the law, magnifying subaltern voices while sensitizing decision-makers to the hierarchies that are often sustained in legal regimes that explicitly aim to achieve justice in the world.