A Window of Opportunity: The Crisis as a Period of Cultural Change

Abstract

Based on three months of fieldwork in Porto, Portugal, this thesis explores to what exent the economic crisis as a locally embedded phenomenon can be assessed as a period of change. By looking at the crisis as a disaster, but also as a continuation of history and processes, it argues the crisis is, partly, culturally constructed and maintained through narratives of passivity. By showing examples of the way the context of Porto is changing, and how these change relate to the crisis and its aftermath, and argument is made to view the crisis as a continuation of processes along the lines of Liquid (or late) modernity.