Future-making and Custom in Indigenous Land Claims in Colonial Mexico
On 15. January 2025, as part of the Max Planck Lecture in Legal History and Legal Theory series, Yanna Yannakakis (Emory University) presents the lecture, “Future-making and Custom in Indigenous Land Claims in Colonial Mexico.” This talk delves into the ways Indigenous communities in colonial Mexico engaged with Spanish legal systems to secure their land rights, challenging conventional perceptions that place Indigenous peoples as perpetually tied to the past.
Focusing on Indigenous litigation strategies, Yannakakis examines how Native authorities employed Spanish-style partnership contracts to assert communal land claims rooted in ancestral possession. This practice reflects an intentional form of “future-making,” wherein Indigenous communities aimed to avoid costly cycles of litigation and potential conflict with neighboring groups. In doing so, they actively shaped customary law for posterity, aligning it with European legal standards while redefining temporal categories in the process.
By highlighting these strategic legal engagements, the lecture challenges the legacy of colonial narratives and demonstrates the dynamic and forward-looking agency of Indigenous societies. This interdisciplinary analysis offers new insights into legal history, custom formation, and the socio-political dynamics of colonial Mexico.