WRITING CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY FROM BELOW: THE CONTRIBUTION OF POPULAR PETITIONS TO THE ARGENTINE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY OF 1949

Abstract

Traditional constitutional history favors expert voices and a statist view of law. Its favorite sources are, logically, the official ones. Most of the Argentine constitutional history does not deviate from this description. It focuses on the 19th century, prioritizes secondary sources, legitimizes power without questioning it, and reproduces an abstraction that hides the previous exclusion of groups such as women, workers, and indigenous people, among others. Inspired by the perspective of the critical legal history and history "from below", this text aims to highlight the importance of revisiting constitutional history by recovering unqualified voices of law such as that of the popular classes. To illustrate this, it presents the case of the Argentine constitutional experience of 1949. In this context, hundreds of collectives presented petitions to the constituent assembly in Buenos Aires, expressing their proposals for constitutional reform in a largely spontaneous manner. What these demonstrations show are the meanings and expectations that these ordinary people had about the constitutional law that, we understand, they are also part of that constitutional history and enrich it.