Before heterogeneity. Formulations from the legal literature at the beginning of contemporary times, with special attention to New Spain

Abstract

Terms such as “heterogeneity” and “diagnosis” were only formally included in Spanish dictionaries in the first decades of the 19th century. Although their use was probably already relatively common in the spoken language, it may not be by chance that these notions were recognized by lexicons just when the representation of a new group referred to as Society, Public, People or Public Opinion began to gain strength, in close relationship, moreover, with the emergence of unprecedented political entities. This article analyzes a sample of texts prior to that moment in order to explore the complexity and variability of the terminological and rhetorical devices – as well as their inflections in the narratives of this juncture – with which an attempt was made to analyze the state of the society of the West Indies, and more specifically that of New Spain. To this end, some sources of legal literature are taken into account from which possible twists of the long-consolidated discourse about the diversity and difference of Indian societies and the consequences, or not, of said particular natural constitution of the same might be recorded. This article only outlines some reflections, the consideration of which is awaiting possible future research.