WHO HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY WHAT IS THE LAW?

DISPUTES FOR RIGHTS IN DISPUTED TERRITORIES

Abstract

The right to exist as a connotation of what is just has been at the center of the political struggle of the so-called "minorities". It is on this agenda of dispute over Law that this paper proposes to reflect, based on a case study carried out in three traditional communities in the Brazilian Amazon, in the state of Maranhão. It analyzes how traditional communities have constructed and woven a legal counter-narrative through actions that are not always conventional in terms of sedimentation and the search for guarantees of rights. The work demonstrates that traditional communities with a common family history may have different ways of using, occupying and exploiting the natural resources of a shared territory, and that external agents insert themselves into this dispute and sharpen it, being considered opponents of a collective struggle. There is a constant dispute among different groups to enjoy the hegemony of who has the right to say what the Law is.