Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana Dr. Emilio Ravignani

Between Justice and Reason of State: Vacant See, Patronage, and Frontier

2025-06-30T15:38:49+00:00

The present article explores the political dynamic in the district of the royal court of justice of Charcas or Real Audiencia de Charcas during the period in which Perú did not have a viceroy between 1606 and 1607, re-assessing and expanding on Bridikhina’s (2015) suggestion that the tribunal benefitted from such periods. During these twenty-two months and amidst legal discussions with the royal court of justice in Lima and the Consejo de Indias, the Audiencia in Charcas took over the government of its district, monopolising the distribution of rewards, accelerating the transformation of the east of Charcas into a territory of the Catholic Monarchy through an expedition to support a group of Chiriguanaes. Some contemporaries deemed the period as of “bad government”. However, the exceptional circumstances enabled Audiencia members to
take on additional duties, based on a rhetoric of “reason of state”, prioritising a government run with support from their political clients, aligned with the local elite, as a more pragmatical manner to run the district. Without an “alter-ego” of Phillip III in Peru, the Audiencia in Charcas thought of itself as the best suited
institution to make the monarch present in its jurisdiction.

Invisible markets and “fearless people”: bandits and smugglers between the Spanish and Portuguese empires in late colonial Río de la Plata

2025-06-30T18:30:50+00:00

This work uses primary sources to provide an insight of the people, commodities, and geography of land smuggling in some regions of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata located between the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire in the late decades of Spanish rule (1780-1805). For the first time in the territories
studied in this paper, the results offer quantitative information on the occupational profile of the people accused of being smugglers, their nationality and origin, as well as the cargoes they trafficked, and geo-referenced information on the spaces where they moved. It aims to document on two facts of historical
interest: the social status of the subjects involved in illegal border trafficking and the spatiality of the phenomenon.

Doña Pituca. Experience, subjectivity and politics through a worker's autobiography

2025-06-30T18:31:12+00:00

The aim of this article is to analyze the autobiography of ‘Pituca’, a worker born in the north of the province of Córdoba in the early 1930s. That manuscript, dated 1990 and to which we were able to gain access in the context of a series of interviews, provided privileged entrance to issues of great interest for the understanding of an individual trajectory inseparable from the class conditions that made it possible. Following this premise, this article focuses on three of the central cores that structure it: the representation of her rural origins, the remembrance of a daily life directly linked to domestic service in the city of Córdoba, and the reconstruction of the process of politicization that led to the early identification of this female worker with Peronism. In a transversal way, it attends to the narrative modulations and strategies associated with a style of writing that continually reflects, also, its class markers.

Interstices of economic policy during the Alfonsín government: the controversial vision of Bernardo Grinspun on the economy between 1985-1989

2025-06-30T18:31:27+00:00

Economics and economic history studies that dealt with the years of Raúl Alfonsín’s government (1983-1989) gave less importance to the vision, interpretation and controversies raised by the first Minister of Economy Bernardo Grinspun (1983-1985). Especially, and taking into account his economic failure, compared to the studies and testimonies of collaborators and officials of his successor in the Ministry of Economy, Juan Sourrouille (1985-1989). The article analyzes Grinspun’s vision of economic policies while he served as Secretary of Economic Planning, focusing on the debates raised and the alternatives and proposals for economic policy. The sources studied were speeches, official documents and bibliography of Grinspun, as well as press and public statistics and testimonies about the period. We sustain that analyzing Grinspun’s vision of the economy and economic policy allows us to understand the tension between the economic visions within the ruling party and the alternative proposals that the former Minister formulated to face the economic problems of the period. In particular, highlighting his postulates on the need for financial reform as a driving force to recover growth and reduce inflation levels.

Presentación al dossier Comunicar la historia. Balances, desafíos, perspectivas

2025-07-04T14:26:26+00:00

Presentation to the dossier: Communicating the Story. Assessments, challenges, perspectives

Communicating History: Some Reflections

2025-06-30T18:32:00+00:00

This essay examines various aspects of communication in history, considered as part of the production of historical knowledge and the education of its audience. It initially argues for the suitability of the term “communication” instead of “dissemination”. It then points out some general problems –the historian as communicator, the public, the role of the editor– and concludes with a reference to two very different historians with unique capacities for communication: Félix Luna and José Luis Romero.

Popularization of history in museums and “common sense” about Argentina's past

2025-06-30T18:32:16+00:00

This paper explores how the popularization of history in museums, based on recent historiographic contributions, coexists with the historical ideas held by their visitors. The analysis is based on the author's experience in conveying content about the Revolution of Independence at the Museo del Cabildo de Buenos Aires and the Museo Histórico Nacional (Argentina). The paper discusses the presence of a “revisionist common sense”, as posited by some historians, and proposes the primacy among the publics of a “patriotic common sense,” developed in elementary school.

“Audible History”: Historical Podcasts in the Communication of Academic Knowledge

2025-06-30T18:32:30+00:00

Podcasts have become an especially valuable tool for historians seeking to engage broader publics with their scholarly work. This article examines the formats and functions of historical podcasts produced by academic historians in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Argentina. A key focus of this analysis is how these podcasts negotiate the tension between accessibility and entertainment on the one hand, and the communication of complex, methodologically rigorous interpretations of the past on the other.

How to domesticate a concept?

2025-06-30T18:32:51+00:00

The publication of Civilización. Historia de un concepto by José Emilio Burucúa marks a turning in Argentine historiography. Not only is this an unprecedented historical research for our scientific field, but, by inverting the usual conditions in which the idea of otherness is understood, the author forges a new concept of civilisation and, at the same time, offers a vast panorama of its conceptual itinerary through the most diverse cultural areas. However, this work also aims to take a political and intellectual stance on a phenomenon that has always been very sensitive to his historiography. After a brief comparative exercise with the English historian Eileen Power’s conception of the High Middle Ages and her political militancy before the outbreak of the Total War, we will try to find some points in common with Burucúa’s work and other differences in order to analyse the way in which the author dialogues with different historiographical traditions.

Reviews

2025-07-03T14:20:38+00:00

Lila Caimari, Lía Guillermina Oliveto, Alejandro Pautasso, Mario Etchechury Barrera, Juan Pedro Navarro Martínez, Magalí Pérez, Sabrina Asquini, Gianfranco Calzini, Germán Soprano.