People of the Iberian Borderlands - Community and Conflict Between Spain and Portugal, 16401715

This book is devoted to the inhabitants of the Spanish-Portuguese borderlands during the early modern period.

It seeks to challenge a predominant historiography focused on the study of borderlands societies, relying exclusively on the antagonistic topics of subversion and the construction of boundaries. It states that by focusing just on one concept or another there is a restrictive understanding tending to condition the agency of local communities by external narratives. Thus, if traditionally border people were reduced by some scholars to actors of a struggle against a supposedly imposed border; in a more modern perspective, their behaviors have been also framed in bottom-up processes of consolidation of spaces of sovereignty in a no less limiting vision. Faced with both approaches, the objective of this work is not to deny them but, first and foremost, to situate the experiences of border populations outside of logics that I understand as originally alien to themselves, and to highlight their own subjectivity. Finally, it also demonstrates that most of the practices developed by border people were fundamentally aimed at defending their local communities.

It will be useful for both audiences interested in early modern Iberia or border studies from a bottom-up perspective.

List of contents

PART ONE: Communities between two communities 1. The Portuguese of Castile, the Castilians of Portugal 2. The unrepresented 3. Refuge and destruction 4. Contraband, modus vivendi PART TWO: War and the politics of daily life 5. On local truces 6. A grand yet local peace 7. ‘A wolflike urge’ 8. A rayano perspective on borderland custom houses PART THREE: At peace along the Raya 9. Restored sovereignties 10. ‘At the back of the world’ 11. Innumerable unresolved conflicts 12. The return of Mars

Summary

This book is devoted to the inhabitants of the Spanish-Portuguese borderlands during the Early Modern Period.

Product details

• Authors: David (Universidad Nacional De Educ Martin Marcos, David Martín Marcos
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 02.09.2022
• EAN: 9780367758202
• ISBN: 978-0-367-75820-2
• No. of pages: 278
• Series: Early Modern Iberian History in Global Contexts
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; European History, History: theory & methods, HISTORY / General, HISTORY / Social History, military history, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Modern / 17th Century, HISTORY / Modern / 18th Century, HISTORY / Historiography, Social and cultural history, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, History and Archaeology, History: theory and methods, HISTORY / Europe / Spain