5 - Radical Mobility

Summary

This chapter studies the shaky effects of mobility and the resistance to it. The chapter looks at some cases in which Spanish officials and subjects moved way beyond the accepted boundaries and their mobility turned into trespassing, even going native. This radical movement, notably when physical mobility resulted in cultural mobility, generated many tensions and anxieties within each local society, and, in turn, prompted intense debate on the definition of the empire’s limits and nature. Many feared the excesses of mobility and argued for stringent policies and controls that would supposedly fixate Spanish identity and keep it pure.