Abstract
<p>In 2011, Portugal, suffering the impact of the 2008 crisis, both for internal and external reasons, requested financial assistance from the <em>Troika</em> (IMF/ECB/EU). The Portuguese experienced company bankruptcies, cuts to salaries and pensions, rising unemployment and job insecurity and difficulties in paying their mortgages. Despite severe austerity programs and formal exit of the <em>Troika</em>, Portugal failed to reduce public debt. In this article, after giving a brief overview of development models, we will focus our attention on the impacts of the crisis in rural areas and the diverse perceptions of crisis by different groups and families. As a case study, we will consider the strategies employed by residents of a parish in the municipality of Barcelos (Braga, Minho), to reduce the damage caused by the crisis. Against the mainstream liberal perspective and the traditional Marxist thesis we sustain that rural people adopt an attitude of resiliency in relation to the austerity program and on the basis of empirical qualitative research methods we can witness creative familial strategies to survive: migration, exploiting the potentialities of the land, taking advantage of artisanal and commercial opportunities in order to cope with the difficulties caused by the crisis. </p>
Highlights
Problem, Objectives and Research MethodsDespite progress in recent decades, since the Revolution of the 25th of April of 1974, Portugal remains a semi-peripheral country
Despite the formal exit of the Troika, Portugal remains bound by Troika conditions and its underlying economic and financial interests are the deep causes of the crisis
The prescriptions of the so-called adjustment program include the following measures: (i) stabilization of public finances at the expense of austerity, which affects the poorest and most defenseless, and a significant reduction in worker salaries, among the less qualified classes, and among highly qualified individuals, incorrectly referred to as middle classes; (ii) counter-reform of labor laws, in particular increased flexibility and facilitation of dismissal; (iii)privatization of public enterprises, the most profitable, and damage to the environment; (iv) an increase in food dependency, deregulation of economic activities, and almost total liberalization of capital markets and trade (WTO); (v) decentralization of services and erosion of the Welfare State and rights acquired over several decades by assigning State functions to the private sector, in the fields of health and education. These measures, which were applied to Greece and Portugal, have previously been imposed on other countries in Latin America, during the 1980s and 1990s, leading to condemnation of such policies by the 1993 International People’s Tribunal in Tokyo
Summary
Objectives and Research MethodsDespite progress in recent decades, since the Revolution of the 25th of April of 1974, Portugal remains a semi-peripheral country.
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