Peritaje antropológico biocultural: vulnerabilidades y oportunidades al tangibilizar lo intangible

• Main Author: Lizbeth de las Mercedes Rodríguez
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos 2018-06-01
• Series: Trace
• Subjects: Anthropological expertise; Indigenous Law; biocultural anthropology; vulnerability; judicial system
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/trace/3344

Indigenous Maya people of Campeche have a specific well-structured normative and juridical system of their own. This is recognized by the Indigenous Law as a normative expression with legal character derived from Customary Law. Although Mexican hegemonic law enforcement recognizes structured and tacit rules, codes and procedures among those native communities, this legal system and related practices are still vulnerable to misinterpretation because of misunderstandings by the judicial authorities. This different way to understand Customary Law forces judicial authorities to request specialized opinions (expertise) about practices among Mayan people or communities. In this paper, we will ponder about the importance of the biocultural expertise and their role as guiding documents for the judicial authorities in cases of controversy. We thus reframe the criteria which expert witnesses and law enforcers must apply to legal cases when analyzing different cultural contexts and cosmovisions.