SYMBOLIC CONFLICTS AND HISTORICAL REINVENTIONS: THE LAW UNDER THE AXE OF XANGÔ

Abstract

Abstract: With the installation of the Oxé of Xangó in some Brazilian courts of justice (FUNDAÇÃO CULTURAL PALMARES, 2024; HONÓRIO, 2025), a debate emerges that seeks to compare the concepts and archetypes of justice between Themis and her decolonial counterpart: the king of Oyo. Thus, this work aims to analyze the symbolic (re)orientation introduced by the justice of the orixá from the Yoruba pantheon, while simultaneously seeking to recognize collective and ancestral knowledge as a constitutive part of the concept of justice. The socio-legal-spatial crepuscular methodology was adopted, which constitutes an interdisciplinary proposal for analysis among Law, Literature, and Territory. Grounded in narratology and the contributions of humanist geography, the method seeks to identify and interpret socio-legal-spatial themes present in literary works, articulating them with the historical and contemporary context, in order to broaden the critical understanding of the relationships among norm, narrative, and space. As a result, it was observed that the justice symbolically brought by the figure of the Greek goddess acts in a way that perpetuates hegemonic domination, so that Themis appears indifferent and blindfolded before the inequalities and miseries of subalternized peoples. On the other hand, Xangó, with his eyes open, receiving the calm of Iansã, acts in a balanced and equitable manner; where, guided by ancestral knowledge, he uses his axe to break with inequality. It is concluded that the concept of justice (re)structured by the king of Oyo acts in a counter- and decolonial manner, embracing and employing ancestral, plural, and original knowledges.