Brazilian Legal Culture and Digital Coloniality

Abstract

This article investigates the hypothesis that digital coloniality constitutes a new historical phase of Brazilian legal culture, reshaping its epistemological, institutional, and political foundations. It adopts a qualitative and critical-theoretical approach grounded in the epistemologies of the South and the philosophy of liberation, particularly the works of Enrique Dussel and Aníbal Quijano. The methodological procedure combines theoretical-conceptual analysis with the empirical examination of paradigmatic cases of digital technologies in the legal field, focusing on artificial intelligence systems, predictive algorithms, and surveillance technologies applied to justice in Brazilian and international contexts. The study argues that the political economy of data and algorithmic governance are transforming national legal culture, updating coloniality within legal practices and knowledge. It concludes that digital coloniality does not represent mere technological modernization of law, but a restructuring of its historical rationality, with implications for the cognitive and political autonomy of the Global South.