ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the main tenets of ‘plurinational law’, as developed in a polyphonous debate around the Bolivian 2009 Constitution, and discusses its complex materialization on the basis of a case study. The understanding of plurality at the core of these proposals is fundamentally critical of ‘multicultural’ notions of ‘accommodation’ or ‘recognition’, and instead aims at a radical rethinking of law. Plurinationality will then be analysed with respect to its claim to qualitative difference to prior forms of conceptualizing plurality, namely monocultural liberalism and neoliberal multiculturalism, focusing on its challenge to rethink law and rights. In the second part of the chapter, an instance of ‘plurinational law in action’ is addressed. In particular, this concerns a ruling of the Constitutional Court (TCP – Tribunal Constitucional Plurinacional) regarding the constitutionality of a ruling of the Justice Council of an Aymara community and the response of the latter. While the TCP has issued an ambiguous ruling, where the pronounced visionary and innovative aspirations remained in great part trapped in a monological and superficial interpellation of indigenous culture and legality, the subsequent micro-level negotiations of the main concepts in this ruling are a positive example of the possibilities and realities of a reconceptualized law.
