Law, identity, territory and conflict: a methodological proposal for a case study

Abstract

The aim of this article is to create a methodology for the analysis of social phenomena related to ethnicity, territoriality and law in rural contexts. From an interdisciplinary perspective which brings together the fields of sociology and anthropology of law, the article proposes as a theoretical-methodological central axis the notion of the semiautonomous subfield of law to locate —on a contextual map— the fundamental phenomena which are manifested through disputes for territor y among the Wixaritari (Huicholes) and the Mestizo population. The interactions that these groups maintain are structured by the ar ticulation of the operating mechanisms of the judicial field and subfields: violence, rhetoric and bureaucracy. The mechanism of violence has been an essential element in the structuring of differential relationships between the Wixaritari and Mestizo population, for it has contaminated the ar ticulation between rhetoric and bureaucracy, and has represented a binding practice between community and government agents.