How Can Dissenting Historical Narratives of Law Be Uncovered and Shared through Transmedia Historytelling?

Abstract information

In this video, Karla Escobar explores "dissenting historical narratives of law," focusing on alternative legal frameworks created by grassroots movements. She highlights the Misak people's concept of "Derecho Mayor" in Colombia and introduces Transmedia Historytelling, a method that uses diverse formats—such as documentaries and graphic histories—to reframe legal history. This approach emphasizes the performative and oral aspects of law, making legal history more accessible and participatory. Escobar advocates for a broader, more inclusive understanding of law that engages communities and challenges traditional narratives.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB101188

Researcher

Karla Luzmer Escobar Hernández is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt, Germany, specializing in legal history, indigenous legal practices, and transmedia narratives. She holds degrees in History and Political Science from the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia), where she also earned a Master's in History, followed by a Master's in History of the Hispanic World at the Universitat Jaume I in Spain. Her doctoral studies were completed at the Faculty of Law at Universidad de los Andes and the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory (2020). Her most recent book is Camino y ruptura. Una historia gráfica de las prácticas jurídicas indígenas en el Cauca a principios del siglo XX (2024).

Institution information

Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory

The Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory considers its most important task to consist in engaging in theoretically reflected historical research in the field of law and other forms of normativity in order to make a specific contribution to the fundamental research in legal scholarship, the social sciences and historical humanities. The Institute’s research examines law, its constitution, legitimation, transformation and practice. Particular attention is paid to the positioning of historical forms of ‘law’ in the context of other normative orders. The establishment of a department engaged in developing a multidisciplinary legal theory in 2020 substantially expands the Institute's engagement with issues of legal theory.

Original Publication

Indigenous Law and Social Mobilization: A History of the Concept of Derecho Mayor in Cauca (Colombia)

Karla L. Escobar H.

Published in 2023

What is Transmedia HistoryTelling about?

Del investigador solitario y otras ficciones / I

Camino y ruptura : una historia gráfica de las prácticas jurídicas indígenas en el Cauca a principios del siglo XX