Social practices of representation: pronunciamientos in Mexico at the beginning of republican life

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Mexico, as in all of Spanish America, independence from Spain was followed by a period of political instability. This instability was related, in particular, to the need to find new forms of and procedures for political decision-making and ways to create new political identities given the rise of new concepts such as national sovereignty, representation and the general will in the era of Atlantic Revolutions. This article sheds light on pronunciamientos as a form of representation which became prominent in Mexico. Some pronunciamientos were outright rebellions but they were more often a ritualized practice used by many social actors to express their will in political conflicts. Along with elections, they took on a mediating function between the government and representative bodies and the citizenry. Pronunciamientos changed the one-directional relationship between ruler and ruled that had been common during the colonial period. Communication between the local, regional and national levels intensified considerably and printed public spaces merged with oral spaces. The importance of pronunciamientos lay not only in their direct influence on political decisions but also in their symbolic function. The article shows how surprisingly fast these elements of pronunciamientos came to life in 1823, a decisive year for the Mexican polity.