La recepción de los discursos higienistas: urbanismo, género y clase en Bilbao (XIX-XX)

During the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, Bilbao, like other European industrial centres, became the scene of social changes and tensions. The overcrowding of the growing urban proletariat and the expansion of the industrial suburbs endangered the civilising ideals of the Bilbao bourgeoisie, eager to emulate international urban models. Concern for hygiene and public health was linked to demographic growth, population agglomeration and the appearance of a whole series of tensions and conflicts encompassed under the broad term of the ‘social question’. Together with the social question, another of the main concerns of the liberal bourgeoisie was the so-called ‘women's question’ and the appearance of a new element of disruption that endangered the Enlightenment civilising project, based on ideals of rationality and progress. The modernisation of Bilbao was a long and complex process. While the opening of the Ensanche brought the centre into line with the postulates of hygienism, the working-class neighbourhoods lacked basic infrastructures. The spread of diseases and epidemics was blamed on the disorderly way of life of the working classes. The regenerationist political trend and the emergence of new scientific disciplines aimed at the effective disciplining of the population took the form of regulations and an abundance of medical literature. The criticisms of moral reformers, while pointing to economic deprivation and social inequalities, focused on the lack of morals among workers. The proximity between young men and women in workers' dwellings, or the displacement of salaried women workers outside the home, contravened the nineteenth-century ideal of domesticity, making women workers the target of hygienist discourses. This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part, with a more introductory character, focuses on issues related to urbanism, the formation of class consciousness among the urban proletariat, sexuality and gender relations, as well as the creation of misogynist stereotypes in the Western world. This part of the research begins with a preliminary study of how industrialisation brought about profound economic, urban and social transformations that altered the face of cities and social relations. The historical evolution of some of the most common female stereotypes in literature and art, and the consolidation of misogynist discourses in a model of domesticity far removed from the way of life of the working classes, are also dealt with in the form of a gallery. The second section adopts a local approach, focusing on Bilbao and its surroundings. Based on a diverse range of documentary sources, including the reports of the Social Reforms Commission for the province of Bizkaia, reformist medical literature and legal texts contemporary to the period studied (regulations, judicial records, complaints and municipal ordinances), this work aims to address both the reception of the hygienist trend in Bilbao and its legal form, as well as its real repercussions on the lives of working women. The aim of this thesis is to find out the true scope of the discourses of modernisation and social reform in a context of class antagonisms, transformations of the urban plan and the model of gender relations. The theoretical framework used combines social history, urban history and microhistory, paying particular attention to the emergence of new social dynamics in the field of gender relations and sexuality. The scale of study will move from the general to the particular, establishing a dialogue between moral discourses, the practical application of regulations and the strategies of resistance deployed by the population of working-class neighbourhoods. Through documentation, we will try to reconstruct the life stories of several women who were affected by the constrictive hygienist legislation and the social control of authorities concerned about the disorder of the urban suburbs. As this work attempts to show, Bilbao was not left out of the social anxieties and panics that new patterns of leisure, the workers' movement and changes in gender relations produced throughout Europe. The tightening of hygienist regulations, the interest aroused by medical literature and hygienist publications are a sample of the transformations that affected not only the physiognomy but also the social and cultural dynamics of Bilbao, representative of a broader process of urban transformation.

Grantor dc:publisher

Universidad de La Rioja (España)

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Segovia Vara, Marina

Contributors dc:contributor

• Fernández Guerrero, Olaya (Universidad de La Rioja)

Statement dc:rights

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Language dc:language

spa

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/oaites?codigo=345989

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dialnet.unirioja.es:TES0000023155