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Force and the city: occupying and controlling Madrid in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2020

Alejandro Pérez-Olivares*
Affiliation:
Sciences Po Lyon, 14 Avenue Berthelot, 69365 Cedex 07 Lyon, France
*
*Corresponding author. Email: alejandro.perezolivares@sciencespo-lyon.fr

Abstract

For some years, the historiography on Francoist violence has engaged with debates developed by European scholars on the importance of citizen collaboration in authoritarian regimes. In some cases, denunciations made by ‘ordinary men’ have been quantified to establish the extent of violence in everyday life, without taking other qualitative criteria into account. This article explores the importance of urban criteria such as neighbourhood, sociability and mobility in the scope of Francoist violence, taking the military occupation of Madrid at the end of the Spanish Civil War as a case-study.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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Footnotes

This research was carried out with the support of the project ‘La sociedad urbana en España, 1860–1983. De los ensanches a las áreas metropolitanas, cambio social y modernización’ (PGC2018-096461-B-C41). A first version of this text was discussed at ‘Séminaire d'histoire des mondes ibériques et ibéroaméricains’ (Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès). I am thankful to François Godicheau for his comments then and to the seminar ‘Lecturas del mundo urbano’ (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) for some ‘refreshing references’ shared in the distance. I am deeply grateful to Chema Sánchez Laforet for his constant and precious help with mapping.

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