Politics of Recuperation

Through a range of ethnographic case studies focusing on the Portuguese recovery after the economic crisis, this book begins a conversation about the experience of recuperation and repair. Located in the cracks and gaps between the state and society, recuperation appears as a social and infrastructural answer linked to reciprocity, critical urbanity, generational interweaving, alternate ordering and reconnection of different bodies and histories. With chapters looking at public art in Lisbon and recuperative modes of action, this collection takes a thorough look at a society in crisis and shows how the people of the community create micro-politics of resistance. Ultimately, Politics of Recuperation reflects on the meaning of personal and collective resilience in Europe today, as well as on the limits and interstices of contemporary politics.

"I really like the ethnographic sensibility that the contributors bring to the material and the way the collection approaches socially embedded practices of repair and recuperation. Since the experience of living under difficult conditions is so widespread in the world today, the themes of recuperation and repair make this book useful for a broad range of scholars who are interested in how people manage their lives under constrained circumstances. At the same time, the grounded ethnographic approach makes the book essential reading for anyone working in the field of Portugal studies."- Matt Rosen, Ohio University, USA "This book opens a fascinating window into the meaning of personal and collective resilience in Europe today. The crisis came, it ravaged a whole generation, but did it stop it? No! The Portuguese response to externally enforced “austerity” is surely a prime illustration of the creative forces that lurk within Europe’s internal margins."- João de Pina Cabral, University of Kent, UK "These diverse accounts offer insightful ethnographies that describe how citizen inventiveness enabled the Portuguese to cope with the collapse of their social worlds. This is a book offering hope and resources for living in a world that seems to be heading towards a permanent state of crisis."- Adolfo Estalella, Madrid Complutense University, Spain "A timely book offering a richly detailed tapestry and in-depth exploration of the “resonant micropolitics” of crisis and its immediate aftermaths across Portugal. Its broad range of scholars open up anthropological vistas of recuperation and repair, thereby enlarging our understanding of the possibilities for regenerating together in today’s broken worlds."~ Filip De Boeck, University of Leuven, Belgium

Francisco Martínez is Lecturer in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, UK. In 2018, he was awarded the Early Career Award from the European Association of Social Anthropologists.