Ciudadanía y revolución en el Río de la Plata, 1806-1815

Abstract

This paper looks at the introduction of the modern concept of citizenship as a voluntary act, as a conscious act, as a purpose. ¿What did the word citizenship represent for the members of the elite? ¿What idea did they have of what a citizen was? ¿How did they imagine the building of citizenship in the River Plate? ¿What was the horizon of expectations the concept of citizen inspired? And, what is more important, ¿how was that imagery put into practice? In the River Plate the institution of the concept of citizen was not the product of a slow development from the colonial type to the modern type but it was implanted by the elites, from the top, in communities anchored in the imagery of colonial vecindad. The ideas of liberty and equality brought by the revolution, added to the practice of suffra ge, were the foundations of the slow process of citizenship building.