Violence and society in Pamplona (1875-1936)

This thesis aims to study the imaginaries, practices and social dynamics concerning violence, which is understood as a complex and multidirectional object from the beginning of this research. Violence is addressed here through its different shapes during an important period in Modern History, characterized by the emergence of several political regimes. We focus on Pamplona as a paradigmatic city in transition from a rural and administrative town to a modern urban settlement, in order to make a microhistory exercise. Considering some diverse approaches, which come from social and cultural history, but also from another disciplines, such as sociology and anthropology, the delimitation of our object of study is not easy. Therefore, we must consider the most explicit violent expressions, generally understood as offences, without losing sight of extra-judicial violence. Making use of judicial and periodical sources, we try to carry out both quantitative and qualitative approaches on criminality development, relating not only to the judicial, penal and coercive system, but also to the state's repressive apparatus. Based on that, we raise the study of different violent expressions, trying to provide a perspective "from below", attending to their main spaces, pointing out the violent acts under interpersonal motive, according to their development in the domestic and public space. On the other hand, the collective expressions are also relevant, those which were in that intermediate space between personal and political aspirations. Finally, political violence is treated here not only as a planned contention, but as a spontaneous expression, trying to break with those approaches which understand political violence only works in a vertical direction. Eventually, the study of violence and its multiple shapes, from the most explicit forms to the most hidden, under both structural constraints and abstract frameworks, is set here as a new useful methodology in accessing to everyday life history within a growing urban space, during a complex period delimited by two civil wars, the most radical expression of violence.