Citizenship, freedom and participation in Brazil ́s autonomy process and in the national identity building projects

Abstract

The ideia orienting the works developed around the project entitled “Nation and citizenship during the Empire: new horizons” was to establish that the distinction between nation and citizenship was merely heuristic. This PRONEX project, which marked the Centro de Estudos do Oitocentos (CEO)-UFF [Center of studiesof the Eighteenth Century] as a center of excellence, asappointed by Editais PRONEX 2003 and 2006, developed by initiative and under the academic orientation of Professor José Murilo de Carvalho, from UFRJ, intended to enlarge the dimensions of citizenship. As executive coordinator of this project, I intend to discuss here possible ways to broaden these studies through new forms of looking at the use of the sources, through the proposal of a new chronology and a new analytical perspective which put emphasis on a citizenship which is built rather than given by legal rules. It is understood, in addition, that this citizenship was broadened by the political experience of the groups, by conflicts and street movements.