Decolonizing the rights of indigenous peoples in Mexico: ¿Where are we headed?

A BSTRACT : The Iberian colonization of the autochthonous peoples of ancient Mesoamerica brought with it the imposition of the Eurocentric mono-cultural regime of the conquerors, almost completely erasing the normative orders based on the uses and customs of the populations residing in the discovered territories, appealing to the ideas of progress, civility, cohesion and social order. After Mexico's independence, this situation did not change much, and the interests and needs of the indigenous communities were not considered in the political organization of the colonized territories. It was not long ago that critical legal studies proposed the decolonization of the legal systems of Latin America as a milestone to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and communities in the region, using the premises of new constitutionalisms based on emancipatory epistemologies of the rights of these populations that emerged at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In this paper, we explore the bases that gave rise to the latter and analyze whether it is possible to materialize them in Mexico to achieve the respect, recognition, protection and guarantee of the rights of these peoples in the coming years.