'El baile agarrado es pecado'. The evasion of social control in the spaces of 'immorality' in the Andalusian rural world during the Franco regime

Abstract

This article analyses the social control practiced both vertically and horizontally on the public spaces of 'immorality' during the Franco regime in the Andalusian rural world. It was the case of those destined to leisure in which people of both sexes interacted, such as cinemas, ballrooms or beaches. But also how, in spite of being subjected to an strict surveillance by the authorities and 'ordinary' neighbours who cooperated with them and exposing themselves to be penalised, the men and women from the countryside put in motion small everyday strategies to avoid the stifling atmosphere of control and to find micro-spaces where to breathe a certain moral relaxation.