The assumed space : pre-reflective spatiality and doctrinal configurations in juridical experience
(2015)
The purpose of this contribution is to analyse, by means of the legal-historical perspective, the relationship between the pre-reflections of space and the configurations of legal concepts and categories. Three examples of the interplay between doctrinal configurations and the spatial dimension within the context of three different historical periods will be illustrated: given space in the Middle Ages, possible space in the Modern Age and decided space in the Contemporary Age. From this basis, the essay considers the heuristic importance of such an analytical approach – mindful of the profiles of presupposition, such as the space assumption, underlying the conceptualisation of ideas – for a history attentive to the constraints of the theoretical sustainability of legal concepts.
Für die Rechtsgeschichte in Lateinamerika scheint heutzutage eine neue Phase anzubrechen; jüngere Forscher erweitern ihr Betätigungsfeld hinsichtlich der Themen, Chronologie und Methodologie, und ihre Forschungsarbeiten führen zu einer neuen Auseinandersetzung mit der aktuellen Aufgabe des Rechtshistorikers. Es handelt sich um sehr unterschiedliche Arbeiten, was Charakteristika, Ansätze, Ausrichtung, Voraussetzungen und Kontext anbelangt; sie illustrieren Rechtserfahrungen, die – obwohl relativ homogen – nur zum Teil auf ein kontinentales unicum zurückgeführt werden können. ...
The end of an empire is almost always marked with legal acts, which often serve as the founding documents of a new order. There the beginning and the end converge. For example, the constitutional documents of Hispanic America after 1810 simultaneously heralded the dawn of new states and the twilight of the Spanish Empire. Since constitutions and the state institutions they help to build are deeply imbued with symbolic power, they are an important element in constructing, perhaps even in "inventing", nations. They provide raw materials for our regimes of memory and divide history into a "before" and an "after", through which they also exert a stabilising effect. ...