inequality and the artistic imagination: how portuguese culture is dealing with the portuguese...

Inequality and the artistic imagination: how Portuguese culture is dealing with the Portuguese crisisPAULA GUERRA

AUGUSTO SANTOS SILVA

HELENA SANTOS

University of Porto, Portugal

Prague, 25–28 August 2015 | Esa 12th Conference

Differences, inequalities and sociological imagination

1. Introduction: the crisis, the ‘troika’ and the arts

International crisis 2008

(North-American

financial system)

Crisis of the European

sovereign debts crisis

Several countries

belonging to the Euro

Area were forced to ask

for external aid


•Greece

• Ireland

•Portugal

•Cyprus

Each country had to

implement an

‘assistance

programme’.

The Portuguese

programme ended in May

2014, but but all

throughout its

implementation the

programme was involved

in intense political

controversy.

There is a general perception of the huge sacrifices it demanded both from the society and

the economy. If one compares the main economic and social indicators of 2014 with those

of 2010, the conclusion is quite obvious: there was some progress in fiscal consolidation

and in the external deficit, and a strong retrogression regarding the creation of wealth,

employment, income, poverty and inequality.


Indicators 2010 2014

Gross Domestic Product (GDP, millions of euros, at 2011 constant prices) 179.445 167.859*

Employed population (thousands of people) 4,898.4 4,499.5

Unemployment rate (%) 10.8 13.9

Unemployment rate of youngster with less than 25 years (%) 22.8 34.8

GDP per capita (euros, at 2011 constant prices) 16.972 16,139*

Population at risk of poverty (%) 18.0 19.5**

Gini coefficient (%) 34.2 34.5**

Income inequality (S80/S20: how many times is the 20% richest people’s income

superior to the 20% poorest people’s income?) 5.7 6.2**

Balance of trade (millions of euros) -12.8 +1.9

Fiscal deficit (% of GDP) -11.2 -4.5*

Public debt (% of GDP) 96.2 130.2*

*estimated or provisional value; **2013 provisional values

Source: PORDATA (www.pordata.pt; accessed August 2015)

Table 1. Main economic and social indicators in Portugal, 2010-2014

Does this mean that the assistance programme failed – or,

on the contrary, that it was the necessary precondition for

future economic and social prosperity?

We will not be dealing with this issue here.

It is enough to indicate how devastating the crisis has been and to point out the

breakdown in confidence and social trust that it generated.



All the indicators measuring the evolution of the public opinion report the increase of

pessimism and disaffiliation regarding democratic institutions and actors.

Indicators 2010 2014

Satisfaction with democracy (mean value, in the scale from 1 to 4)2.4(at November, 2009)

2.0(at November)

Confidence in the government (% of those who say that trust)19%(at December)

17%(at November)

Confidence in the political parties (% of those who say that trust)14%(at December)

11%(at November)

Source: Source: POP – Portal da Opinião Pública (www.pop.pt, accessed August 2015)

Table 2. Indicators of social trust in Portugal, 2010-2014

It is not only the ‘material’ standards of personal and social life that were at

‘stake, symbolic ‘ and moral issues are also relevant.


Sociology can give some help in addressing these and similar questions. Its most important

contribution resides in the combination of the analysis of available objective indicators and

the inquiry into the less crystallised realm of symbols, beliefs and representations. Our basic

assumption here is that this sociological endeavour can benefit from art.

The artistic perspective of the social crisis is crucial because:

a) as intellectuals, artists participate in the social reflections and debates in and about any

historical circumstances;

b) they tend to work on those circumstances and the ideas, emotions and behaviours they

provoke in people, as materials for creation;

c) their works and performances configure a representation of, and a discourse on, social

reality that is part and parcel of the whole set of discourses and representations

produced in and about that reality.

How could this delicate

historical moment be

interpreted?

How should new

energies and

players be

mobilized?

What lessons had

to be learned?

How should the citizens and their organisations react?

How could the national interest

and vision be redefined?


Here the focus will be on art as a form of knowing,

interpreting and problematizing social realities: on its

power to perform, reconstruct and confront history and

society; its capacity to simultaneously immerse itself in,

and distance itself from social context (see Silva,

forthcoming)

The aim is, therefore, to observe how

Portuguese culture has dealt with the

Portuguese crisis, in the years 2011-

2014, when the country was subjected

to external aid and the inherent

assistance programme.

The approach will be based in a cross-

section analysis, considering the

domains of literature, fine arts, visual

arts and cinema, music and the

performing arts.

2. Artivism in the ‘troika’ years: the crisis as a theme


Social criticism and political activism were explicit components of

and a main motif in several artistic works and performances in

Portugal during the troika years.

Artistic engagement – artivism – was seen as an indispensable and

effective instrument to mobilize against and fight ideological

hegemony and the political power of the ‘troika’, the government (or

the entire political establishment), and mainstream economists and

politicians.

2.1. “There is no room for ourdreams in your ballot boxes (Os nossos sonhos não cabem nas vossas Urnas)”Artistic installation by Rui Mourão at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (July 2014)


“There is no room for our dreams in your ballot boxes (Os nossos sonhos não cabem nas

vossas Urnas)”

Artistic installation by Rui Mourão at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (July 2014)

2.2. “12.12.12”Photo exhibition by various photographers at the Portuguese Centre for Photography (February to April 2013)


“12.12.12”

Photo exhibition by various photographers at the Portuguese Centre for Photography (February to

April 2013)

2.3. “Redemption (Redenção)”Short film by Miguel Gomes (2013)


“Redemption”

Short film by Miguel Gomes (2013)

2.4. “Que parva que eu sou (What a fool I am)”Music by Deolinda (2011)


“Que parva que eu sou (What a fool I am)”

Music by Deolinda (2011)

2.5. “Medo do Medo (Fear ofFear)”Music by Capicua (2012)


“Medo do Medo (Fear of Fear)”

Music by Capicua (2012)

2.6. “Pelo meu relógio são horas de matar (By my watch it is time to kill)”Music by Mão Morta (2014)


“Pelo meu relógio são horas de matar (By my watch it is time to kill)”

Music by Mão Morta (2014)

3. Reconfiguring time and space: the crisis as a revealer

3. Reconfiguring time and space: the crisis as a revealer

It would be a mistake to confine the sociological inquiry into the

artistic problematization of the Portuguese crisis to explicit

discourses and representations.

In our view, one must abandon the conventional approach, and

seriously conceive art and sociology as ‘epistemological partners’.

The relation between the social context, challenging as it is, and art work, autonomous and

situated as it is, cannot be subsumed under the (complex) causality chains at stake. They

also have to be regarded as independent social processes that dialogue one with the other.

The specificities of the context – here, the fact that it involves a huge crisis, both in political-

economic and in moral-symbolic terms – do illuminate certain features and outcomes of that

dialogue, which began before the crisis and will continue after its end. They act as revealers.

4. Concluding remarks: on the complexity of the oblique


As far as we know, there is not yet a significant sociological literature - internationally

available - on the cultural and artistic dimensions of the troika’s intervention in Greece,

Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus.

This presentation should be taken, therefore, as a methodological proposal and its

preliminary empirical testing.

Our proposal can be summarised in three sentences:

1. The political discourse and social criticism originated in the artistic imagination and

expressed in artistic language, being effective in any given context, takes on increased

pertinence and value in times of systemic crisis; one must consider it, when trying to

understand the whole scope of that crisis.





This presentation should be taken, therefore, as a methodological proposal, and its



2. but this is not the only way by which the crisis is perceived and represented in

symbolic and aesthetic terms, since it also forms a sort of background, an ambience,

framing and influencing those terms.





This presentation should be taken, therefore, as a methodological proposal, and its



3. It is not possible to work out a comprehensive understanding unless one fully reckons

the autonomous nature of ‘art’ vis-à-vis ‘society’ and the dialogical relationship thus

generated between ‘art’ and ‘society’.


In all three levels, things are oblique – and that is perhaps the decisive

remark.

There are no straight lines, no conspicuous relations, no obvious links,

between arts and their social context.

One must deal with ambiguity, openness, polysemy – with obliquity. But

obliquity does not imply unaccountability.

One only has to design an appropriated approach to complexity. This

presentation has been an attempt to contribute to such a design.

PAULA GUERRA

AUGUSTO SANTOS SILVA

HELENA SANTOS

University of Porto, Portugal

Thank you

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