Ricardo Sanín or the insatiable temptation to think against the grain

Abstract

Ricardo Sanín Restrepo has been the main national reference for critical legal thought for at least a decade. His reflections and approaches are a radical bet to establish the ways in which the law, as an exercise of power, plays its hegemony in relation to various states that pave the way to achieve its mission. His analyzes are consolidated in the light of heterogeneous philosophical readings that achieve a theoretical framework that is difficult to avoid in critical perspectives. In it, criticism is exhibited as a very sharp and forceful punch that is not daunted by the rigor mortis of traditional legal discourses: it scrutinizes them, deconstructs them (actually decrypts them, decolonizes them), and shows us their contingent and historical character, their own limitations. A wide intellectual production supports his work; numerous articles in several languages in prestigious magazines, books are written in Spanish and English that are becoming unavoidable for critical thinking; conferences in various countries of Latin America and Europe; Classes in Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Mexico allow him to be presented as an important author when drawing cartography of what critical legal thinking is today.