The legal pluralism in the Brazilian experience:

a critique of Raymundo Faoro's monist historiography

Authors

Keywords:

Legal history, Legal pluralism, Brazilian Empire, Colonial Brazil, Raymundo Faoro

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2025/82556

This article investigates the reasonableness of historiographical interpretations that reduce the Brazilian legal experience, from the colonial period onward, to the law-making will of the sovereign State. To examine this perspective, which found its most well-defined expression in Raymundo Faoro's work Os donos do poder (“The Owners of Power”), this article conducts a long-term analysis of Brazilian colonial and imperial history in search of institutions and centers of power, whether public or private, that escape the monist framework. It is concluded that the Brazilian legal experience was highly complex, pluralistic, and replete with local laws, which requires legal historiography to adapt its research agenda and methodologies.

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Author Biography

João Paulo Mansur, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Doutor e mestre em direito pela Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). Graduado em direito e em ciências sociais pela Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES). Membro do Studium Iuris (CNPq/UFMG), grupo de pesquisa em história da cultura jurídica. Desenvolve pesquisas em história do direito, antopologia jurídica e pensamento social e político brasileiro, nos temas constitucionalismo, história das instituições, do Estado e da justiça, coronelismo, patriarcalismo, ordem doméstica, pluralismo jurídico, bacharelismo, cangaço e banditismo no Brasil.

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Published

2025-09-04

How to Cite

Mansur, J. P. (2025). The legal pluralism in the Brazilian experience:: a critique of Raymundo Faoro’s monist historiography. Direito E Práxis, 16(4), 1–30. Retrieved from https://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/revistaceaju/article/view/82556

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 4 (2025): REVISTA DIREITO E PRÁXIS

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2025 João Paulo Mansur (Autor/a)

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.