Temporal Landmark and the Politics of Time: Roots of a Historical Blunder

The article analyzes the politics of time underlying the creation, application, and justification of the “temporal landmark of occupation”. I argue that this politics is centered on the criterion of the actuality of indigenous occupation, using the date of Brazil’s Constitution’s promulgation as its benchmark. I demonstrate that the main historical justification for the thesis is based on a misinterpretation of the history of a conceptual battle that took place in the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) over the concept of “immemorial possession”. Based on research into ANC documentation, Supreme Court jurisprudence, legislative records, and press articles, I reconstruct this history and show how this blunder has been established in legal and political discourse. Besides demonstrating the analytical viability of the category “politics of time” for historical research, the argument presented in this article also reinforces the unconstitutionality of the temporal landmark.

Keywords:
Historical Time; Theory of History; History of the Present; Conceptual History; Law and History