Endogenous Indigenous law systems have been largely ignored by official institutions. Carried by orality and characterized by the absence of formalism, they are far from readily accessible to non-Indigenous researchers and thinkers, and therefore only vaguely known outside the Indigenous world. We are counting on a partnership of trust and solidarity with our Indigenous colleagues to break down the two solitudes.
The legitimacy of the law is key to the sustainability to the social fabric because it fosters an active feeling of respect in social and legal relations instead of a feeling of constrained obedience. Maintaining social ties is at stake because consent to the law is consent to a social project. This partnership project will help to better understand the manifestations, causes and consequences of conflicts of normative legitimacy between Indigenous and state legal orders and to identify new processes to manage these conflicts.
