Living Forest Constitutionalism (Jenny García Ruales)

If Pacha Mama or Nature was already recognised as a subject of rights in Ecuador's Constitution, why did the Kichwa People of Sarayaku declare their territory the Living Forest (Kawsak Sacha) in 2018 - 'a living and conscious being with rights of its own'? Drawing on accompanied legal ethnography in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Jenny García Ruales traces this question through Indigenous jurisprudence and the more-than-human normativities of the Living Forest. She develops Living Forest Constitutionalism, a constitutional theory that reimagines the foundations of constitutionalism from the jurisprudence of the Living Forest. An essential resource for scholars and readers seeking to rethink where constitutions come from, who makes law, and what it means to defend life.

Jenny García Ruales (Dr.) grew up between the Ecuadorian Coast, the Andes, and the Amazon. She is a legal anthropologist whose research explores the intersections of rights of nature, their intercultural translation, constitutional anthropology, indigenous own law, more-than-human legal worlds, and cosmomaterialities, with a particular focus on Amazonia.