Vindicatory Justice and the State: Accounts from Yolngu and Shuar Ethnogra-phies

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DEL DIRITTO
Author/s Raúl Márquez Porras, Riccardo Mazzola
Publishing Year 2020 Issue 2019/3
Language English Pages 24 P. 71-94 File size 479 KB
DOI 10.3280/SD2019-003004
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

As a central element of certain systems of justice, revenge-feuding actions are usually consid-ered as unregulated responses to offenses and misbehaviours modern law has solved and dis-placed. On the contrary, the theoretical paradigm of "vindicatory justice" highlights how these actions are not spontaneous reactions. Rather, they are submitted to forms of collective surveil-lance and authorization, and they may constitute a different form of conceiving and materializ-ing justice. In fact, historical and ethnographic case studies have proved how vindicatory jus-tice has not disappeared, being rather outdone in its relationship with the law of the State. Working on the two case studies of Shuar (West Ecuador) and Yolngu (Australia), this essay aims to elucidate the idiosyncrasy inherent to vindicatory cultures and highlight their complex relationship with State law.

Keywords: Vindicatory justice - Revenge - Criminal law - Interlegality - Shuar - Yolngu

  1. Aparicio, Marco. 2015. Derechos y pueblos indígenas: avances objetivos, debilidades subjetivas. Revista de Antropología Social, 24: 127-147,
  2. Boehm, Christopher. 2011. Retaliatory Violence in Human Prehistory. The British Journal of Criminology, 51: 518-534,
  3. Chávez, Gina, & Fernando García. 2004. El derecho a ser: diversidad, identidad y cambio. Etnografía jurídica indígenas y afroecuatoriana. Quito: FLACSO.
  4. Colajanni, Antonio, 1984. Prácticas chamánicas y cambio social. La muerte de un hechicero achuar: hechos e interpretaciones. In Michael Brown (org.), Relaciones interétnicas y adaptación cultural entre Shuar, Achuar, Aguaruna y Canelos Quichua. Quito: Abya Yala.
  5. Descola, Philippe, 1993. Les Affinités sélectives. Alliance, guerre et prédation dans l’ensemble jivaro. L’Homme, 33: 171-190,
  6. —, 2005. Las lanzas del crepúsculo. Relatos jíbaros. Alta Amazonia. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
  7. Di Lucia, Paolo, & Letizia Mancini, 2015. La giustizia vendicatoria. Pisa: ETS.
  8. Evans-Pritchard, Edward E., 1976. Brujería, magia y oráculos entre los azande. Barcelona: Anagrama.
  9. Finanne, Mark, 2001. ‘Payback’, Customary Law and Criminal Law in Colonised Australia. International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 29: 293-310,
  10. Harner, Michael. 1972. The Jívaro. People of the Sacred Waterfalls. New York: Anchor Press.
  11. Hendricks, Janet W, 1993. To Drink of Death. The Narrative of a Shuar Warrior. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
  12. Hiatt, Les R., 1987. Treaty, Compact, Makarrata...? Oceania 58: 140-144,
  13. Jouanen, José. 1941. Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la antigua provincia de Quito: 1570-1774. Quito: Editorial Ecuatoriana.
  14. Lowe, Beluah, 2004. Yolngu-English Dictionary. Darwin: Aboriginal Resource and Development Inc.
  15. Mader, Elke. 1999. Metamorfosis del poder. Persona, mito y visión en la sociedad de Shuar y Achuar (Ecuador, Perú). Quito: Abya-Yala.
  16. Martínez Novo, Carmen. 2014. Managing Diversity in Postneoliberal Ecuador. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 19: 103-125,
  17. Pigliaru, Antonio. 1959. La vendetta barbaricina come ordinamento giuridico. Milano: Giuffré.
  18. Rubenstein, Steve. 2005. La conversión de los shuar. Íconos. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 22: 27-48,
  19. —, 2012. On the Importance of Visions among the Amazonian Shuar. Current Anthropology, 53, 1: 39-79, DOI: 10.1086/663830
  20. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa, 2009. Sociología jurídica crítica. Para un nuevo sentido común en el derecho. Madrid: Trotta, ILSA.
  21. —, 2012. Cuando los excluidos tienen Derecho: justicia indígena, plurinacionalidad e interculturalidad. In Boaventura de Sousa Santos & Alejandro Grijalva (org.), Justicia indígena, plurinacionalidad e interculturalidad en Ecuador. Quito: Abya-Yala.
  22. Sierra, María Teresa 2011. Pluralismo jurídico e interlegalidad. Debates antropológicos en torno al derecho indígena y las políticas de reconocimiento. In Victoria Chenaut (org.), Justicia y diversidad en América Latina. Pueblos indígenas ante la globalización. Quito: FLACSO.
  23. Simon Thomas, Marc. 2016. The Effects of Formal Legal Pluralism on Indigenous Authorities in the Ecuadorian Highlands. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 22: 46-61,
  24. Taylor, Anne-Christine. 1993. Remembering to Forget. Identity, Mourning and Memory among the Jivaro. Man 28, 4: 653-78, DOI: 10.2307/2803991
  25. —, 1994. Una categoría irreductible en el conjunto de las naciones indígenas: los jívaro en las representaciones occidentales. In Blanca Muratorio (org.), Imágenes e imagineros: representaciones de los indígenas ecuatorianos, siglos XIX y XX. Quito: FLACSO.
  26. Terradas, Ignasi. 2008. Justicia vindicatoria. Madrid: CSIC.
  27. —, 2012. Què és la justícia vindicatória? (Definició I caraterístiques fondamentals). Recerques, 64: 13-30.
  28. Verdier, Raymond. 1980. La vengeance. Études d’ethnologie, d’histoire et de philosophie. Paris: Cujas.
  29. Viaene, Lieselotte, & Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado. 2016. La brecha entre el compromiso y el cumplimiento con los derechos de los pueblos indígenas. Reflexiones sobre los avances y retrocesos en materia de justicia indígena en Ecuador. Inter-American and European Human Rights Journal, 9: 63-93.
  30. Warner, William L., 1937. A Black Civilization: A Social Study of an Australian Tribe. New York: Harper & Row.
  31. Westermarck, Edward. 1898. The Essence of Revenge. Mind, 7: 289-310.
  32. Williams, Nancy. 1987. Two Laws: Managing Disputes in a Contemporary Aboriginal Community. AIAS: Canberra

  • "Costituzione appropriativa" e pratiche professionali. Gli agenti del campo giuridico di fronte alla mediazione Annalisa Tonarelli, in SOCIOLOGIA DEL DIRITTO 3/2021 pp.69
    DOI: 10.3280/SD2020-003004
  • Addressing Cultural Difference in Indigenous Copyright Cases Riccardo Mazzola, in Anthropological Forum /2023 pp.195
    DOI: 10.1080/00664677.2023.2264519
  • Terradas' Vindicatory Justice: An Attempt at Formalization Riccardo Mazzola, in SOCIOLOGIA DEL DIRITTO 3/2021 pp.52
    DOI: 10.3280/SD2020-003003

Raúl Márquez Porras, Riccardo Mazzola, Vindicatory Justice and the State: Accounts from Yolngu and Shuar Ethnographies in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL DIRITTO " 3/2019, pp 71-94, DOI: 10.3280/SD2019-003004