Tecelões da (des)ordem: cotidiano e policiamento nos sertões da Bahia (1891-1930)

Abstract

Weavers of (Dis) Order: Policing and Daily Life in the Hinterlands of Bahia (1891-1930) aimed to problematize the unstable and tense relations established between members of the public force and the population that lived in the hinterlands of Bahia during the First Brazilian Republic. It is necessary to emphasize that this problematization is guided by the assumptions established by the indiciary method, that is, it is based on the analysis of details, of marginal data, of residues taken as clues, indications, signs or traces, capable of providing the understanding of human experience over time. In this perspective, the construction of historical knowledge must start from a thorough investigation that makes it possible to unveil the nuances of the events from the indications that are imperceptible to most people, because these indications, when inquired and contextualized, provide answers not only to the question what the documentation consulted can "say", but, above all, what lies behind what it is able to "say" about the most diverse historical events. Guided by the precepts of this method, I understood, based on the documentation and the bibliography consulted, how the policemen, even having their field of action limited, whether by legal precepts, or by the discipline and hierarchy propagated by their corporation, or by the resistance or alliances established with the individuals who should be policed, are able to guarantee personal advantages during the performance of their functions. As can be see, the guiding problematic of this work exceeds the usual insistence on the construction of a narrative that emphasizes an institutional history of the police, relegating to a second plan the experiences of the policemen and their interaction with thousands of men and women who lived in the backlands of Bahia. This is possible because the members of the public force, flesh and blood men who felt their experiences, who had their aspirations, their dreams and their fears, ended up resignifying, quotidianly, the role projected to them by the high hierarchy of their institution and by the political authorities, for the policemen, serving in the hinterlands of Bahia, enjoyed a certain degree of independence in their actions and an arbitration capacity that they generally used for their own benefit. Consequently, in an attempt to guarantee their particular interests, the agents of the police institution, responsible for guaranteeing public "order", were at many moments responsible for the installation of disorder in the backlands of Bahia. In other words, in the daily work of the policemen, the boundaries between the world of "order" and that of "disorder" are separated by a tenuous and unstable line that, in a matter of moments, and depending on the actions of the policemen, could take them from the condition of sentinel of "public peace", as idealized by their corporation, to one more agent of "disorder" – hence came the idea of the title of this thesis. Furthermore, taking a close look at these aspects will help to reflect and understand what was happening in the hinterlands of Bahia during the process of consolidation of the Brazilian Republic, since, as one of the main state institutions, the military police became a localized image of the history of the state of Bahia itself.