Vindicatory justice and the State : accounts from Yolngu and Shuar ethnographies

As a central element of certain systems of justice, revenge-feuding actions are usually considered as unregulated responses to offenses and misbehaviours modern law has solved and displaced. On the contrary, the theoretical paradigm of “vindicatory justice” highlights how these actions are not spontaneous reactions. Rather, they are submitted to forms of collective surveillance and authorization, and they may constitute a different form of conceiving and materializing justice. In fact, historical and ethnographic case studies have proved how vindicatory justice has not disappeared, being rather outdone in its relationship with the law of the State. Working on the two case studies of Shuar (West Ecuador) and Yolngu (Australia), this essay aims to elucidate the idiosyncrasy inherent to vindicatory cultures and highlight their complex relationship with State law.