The cosmopolitical law of the Munduruku: a legal practice against the Anthropocene

Abstract

Critical discussions about the Anthropocene point to the necessity of a radical recasting of politics and law. We propose that potential paths for this recasting can be found in the practices through which the Munduruku defend their territory and way of life, particularly in the self-demarcation of the Daje Kapap Eypi territory, initiated in 2014 in response to the Brazilian government's halt on the land demarcation process and the advancement of the São Luiz do Tapajós Hydroelectric Dam licensing. Through an analysis of conflicts surrounding this territory, we investigate the clash between two antagonistic legal logics: on one side, a law of the Anthropocene, which reinforces the separation between nature and society, rejects modes of existence that transcend this duality, and deepens predatory extractivism; and on the other, a cosmopolitical law of the Munduruku, in which rights and obligations are constituted by networks of human and more-than-human entities, autonomous decision-making practices, and the situated experience of territory. We argue that the cosmopolitical legal practice of the Munduruku has established territories capable of halting the advance of extractivism and ecological destruction and should be understood as a legal practice that sustains and repairs the conditions of life on a damaged planet.