Normative Knowledge and Social Hierarchies in the Colonial Periphery. On the Use of Practical Normative Literature in Córdoba del Tucumán, 18th Century

No. 2026-04

English Abstract: 

This article explores the interaction between pragmatic normative literature and legal practice in the Spanish colonial periphery. Focusing on 18th-century Córdoba del Tucumán, it analyzes a criminal case in a district that lacked professional lawyers. Rather than emphasizing the traditional gap between law in books and law in action, the study demonstrates how practical normative literature functioned as a crucial carrier of normative knowledge in this remote frontier area. The analysis highlights the intertextual links between the use of pragmatic legal and theological works and everyday judicial reasoning. Ultimately, the paper shows how normative knowledge—particularly regarding presumptive reasoning and social hierarchies—relied on an epistemic background that intertwined factual and axiological claims, making the cognitive dimension of normative discourse inseparable from the established order of social powers.