THINKING REPUBLICANISM: TRAJECTORIES AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES FROM LATIN AMERICA
Far from constituting a finished political tradition or a univocal concept, republicanism has been a language, a normative horizon and a field of disputes that has taken on multiple meanings over time. In recent decades, historiographical debates have shown that the ideals of freedom, citizenship, representation, civic virtue, sovereignty and the common good have been appropriated, transformed and resignified in diverse historical contexts, giving rise to a plurality of republican experiences. In a global scenario marked by the crisis of representative democracies, the resurgence of authoritarian discourses, political polarization, and the redefinition of the relationship among state, society and citizenship, it is especially pertinent to rethink republicanism historically. Rather than recovering a finished political model, this symposium proposes to examine the multiple itineraries, languages and practices that have shaped the different republicanisms, attending to their continuities, ruptures, appropriations and circulations across different times and spaces.
This symposium invites reflection from Latin America as a space of historical knowledge production, privileging perspectives capable of engaging in dialogue with republican experiences from any region of the world. The aim is to favor comparative, transnational, conceptual and historiographical analyses that contribute to understanding the diversity of republican traditions and their global connections, without losing sight of the specificities of Latin American processes.
Papers will be accepted addressing, among other topics, the conceptual history of republicanism; republican political cultures; citizenship, representation and participation; constitutionalism; federalisms and centralisms; republicanism and empire; republicanism and democracy; republicanism and liberalism; gender, race and exclusion in republican projects; the transnational circulation of political ideas; memories and historiography of republicanism; as well as comparative studies that broaden the boundaries of this field of research.
This symposium aspires to become a space for interdisciplinary dialogue in which the historical study of republicanism contributes not only to understanding the past but also to enriching contemporary discussions on the forms of political life, citizenship, and the construction of the public sphere.
