Uses of silence in political and legal transitions: a methodological approach to constitutional history
| Autor | Cristiano Paixa~o |
| Páginas | 97-119 |
Uses of silence in political and legal transitions:
a methodological approach to constitutional history
Cristiano Paixão
1. The presence of the past: transitions, trauma, silence; 2. Understanding the
uses of silence; 3. Silencing a Revolution: Nineteenth Century Brazil and the Hai-
tian experience; 4. Concluding remarks
At the beginning of my research program, I sought to analyze the historical
factors related to the presence of silence in Brazilian constitutional history.
My goal was to highlight the persecution suffered by the Black population
(including the Black Movement) during the military regime.1 This is an on-
going research project, which continued in the workshops held in Macerata
and Brasília in June and November 2019 and in June 2020.2 I will seek to the
analyze the social construction of silence in relation to social groups, as in the
case of the survivors of the Korean War. After that, I proceed to understand
the social construction of silence more generally. For this purpose, I will ob-
serve the role of silencing in nineteenth-century Brazil, particularly with re-
gard to the social meanings of the Haitian Revolution.
1. The presence of the past: transitions, trauma, silence
connects past and future. We can, for example, discuss the “Brazilian transi-
tion to democracy” or the political transition that took place in South Africa
after the end of its apartheid regime. In these circumstances, transition fo-
cuses on the two poles of organized time: it is possible to emphasize the past
regime, understanding its central features, its ways of oppression, and so on.
It is also possible to highlight the future and to discuss the possibilities for a
1 See Paixão (2021).
2 I thank José Otávio Guimarães, Massimo Meccarelli, Renato Bigliazzi, Hilary Levin-
son, Antonella Meniconi, Douglas Pinheiro and Ana Carolina Couto for suggestions and
discussion. I am also thankful to all participants in the workshops for their contributions
during the discussions held in Macerata and Brasília.
97
CRISTIANO PAIXÃO
98
new regime, taking into consideration the democratic agenda of its political
actors (when the case in question is one of a transition to democracy), the
connections between the state and civil society, and other topics about the
nature of the future regime.
But the analysis of political transitions can be useful for legal history, and
not only for the “transitional” relevance of this lapse in time. Is it possible to
identify different temporal dimensions of political transitions? Can the tran-
sition process create an asymmetry in time, breaking the balance between
past and future—or even invalidating that balance? To what extent can tran-
This paper is the product of an ongoing research project between the Uni-
versity of Macerata and the University of Brasília on the diversity and com-
plexity of transition processes and their impact on legal history. In his essay
in a forthcoming volume on transitions (2021), Massimo Meccarelli investi-
gates the “ascriptive time” that can be found in transition processes, by which
he means the effects on the future of the political and legal measures adopt-
ed during transitions. Observing the legal uses of amnesty in post-war Italy,
Meccarelli points out the persistent effect of concepts and practices typical of
the transition on legal practices in democratic Italy.3
In this paper, we will highlight the silencing of certain groups and actors
during transition processes, especially when catastrophic events and unrec-
onciled trauma were experienced before the transition. As we know, the total-
itarian and authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century were responsible
for countless human rights violations: disappearances, executions, torture,
and other abuses took place during many political struggles around the globe.
In different ways, most of these regimes were ultimately replaced by demo-
cratic rule. That doesn’t mean, however, that the trauma experienced by var-
ious actors, families, groups, and generations was discussed or treated. Many
of the violations were protected by amnesty laws, by political pacts made
during the transitions, and even by the enduring presence, in the new regime,
of political actors who took part in the human rights violations.
Thus, in our discussion, we will try to highlight the role of the silences pro-
duced by political transitions. Our intention is not only to demonstrate the
production and persistence of these silences, but also to propose an analysis
of the uses of these silences by the silenced communities themselves. In other
words, from the perspective of legal history, these silences can be important
3 See Meccarelli (2021).
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu prueba