Abstract

This article uses judicial records of suicide cases from mid-nineteenth-century Paraguay to explore how inhabitants of the country experienced postcolonial state formation. The Republic of Paraguay, founded in 1813, was a marginal, autonomous state in South America, forged from a former Spanish colonial frontier province and dominated by autocratic regimes until its near destruction in the Triple Alliance War (1864–1870). Conventional historical wisdom suggests that unlike other countries in Latin America at the time, matters of nationhood and state sovereignty in Paraguay were largely resolved. Stable autocratic regimes, muted social inequalities among a common peasantry, and ethnolinguistic bonds born of the indigenous-origin vernacular Guaraní allegedly provided for this resolution. However, this article disrupts such received wisdom and finds that state formation in Paraguay by the mid-nineteenth century was still very much an unsettled, ongoing affair, especially in the intensely local contexts of the countryside. Its narrative follows the 1865 suicide of the retired militia officer Pedro Quiñonez and what a local judge did and wrote to condemn his soul. In fact, this and dozens of other cases of suicide reviewed in the article reveal a social world of servitude, racialized denigration, and routine violence that were part and parcel of everyday people’s incorporation into ñane retã—the Guaraní-language expression for the nation-state—and the consequent slippery ambivalence that Pedro and others manifested in their relation to this polity.

中文翻译：

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佩德罗·奎尼奥内斯（PedroQuiñonez）如何丢下自己的灵魂：十九世纪巴拉圭的自杀，例行暴力和国家形成

摘要

本文使用了19世纪中叶巴拉圭的自杀案件的司法记录，来探索该国居民如何经历后殖民国家的形成。巴拉圭共和国成立于1813年，是南美的一个边缘自治州，由一个前西班牙殖民地边境省锻造而成，由专制政权统治，直到在三国同盟战争（1864–1870年）中几乎被摧毁为止。传统的历史智慧表明，与当时的拉丁美洲其他国家不同，巴拉圭的民族和国家主权问题已得到很大解决。据称，稳定的专制政权，普通农民中的社会不平等现象以及土著土著白兰地人所生的民族语言纽带为这项决议提供了条件。然而，本文打乱了这种公认的观点，并发现到19世纪中叶，巴拉圭的国家组建仍是一个未解决的，持续不断的事务，尤其是在乡村的局部地方。它的叙述是在1865年已退休的民兵军官佩德罗·奎尼翁斯（PedroQuiñonez）自杀之后，以及当地法官为谴责他的灵魂所做的写信。实际上，本文中回顾的这起自杀案例以及其他数十起自杀案例揭示了奴役，种族歧视，例行暴力等社会世界，这是每天人融入社会的重要组成部分 它的叙述是在1865年已退休的民兵军官佩德罗·奎尼翁斯（PedroQuiñonez）自杀之后，以及当地法官为谴责他的灵魂所做的写信。实际上，本文中回顾的这起自杀案例以及其他数十起自杀案例揭示了奴役，种族歧视，例行暴力等社会世界，这是每天人融入社会的重要组成部分 它的叙述是在1865年已退休的民兵军官佩德罗·奎尼翁斯（PedroQuiñonez）自杀之后，以及当地法官为谴责他的灵魂所做的写信。实际上，本文中回顾的这起自杀案例以及其他数十起自杀案例揭示了奴役，种族歧视，例行暴力等社会世界，这是每天人融入社会的重要组成部分ñaneretã（民族国家的瓜拉尼语表达）以及随之而来的佩德罗和其他人在与这种政体的关系中表现出的滑溜的矛盾情绪。