RESUMENA partir de la crisis financiera y económica que comienza en España en el año 2008, se ha acrecentado la precarización y la desregulación laboral. Mediante el uso de metodología cualitativa, este artículo estudia el efecto de la crisis sobre los trabajadores que han perdido su empleo y que apenas cuentan con recursos económicos. Con este fin se han identificado cuatro principales trayectorias laborales a partir de las cuales se analizan las distintas formas de percibir la crisis, el significado y las actitudes hacia el mercado laboral, y su vinculación potencial con procesos de mayor empobrecimiento. Igualmente, a partir de dichas trayectorias, se reconstruyen las distintas estrategias desplegadas para reinsertarse en el mercado laboral.Palabras clave: trayectoria laboral, crisis, pobreza, precariedad, empleabilidad.Crisis, unemployment and poverty: analysis of life trayectories and strategies in the labour market ABSTRACT From the financial and economic crisis that is fully established in 2008 in Spain, precariousness and labor deregulation have largely increased. Using qualitative methodology, this article examines the impact of the crisis on workers who have lost their jobs and have scarce economic resources. To this end we have identified four main trajectories from which we analyze the different ways of perceiving the crisis, meanings and attitudes towards the labor market and its potential link with processes of greater impoverishment. Finally, from these trajectories we reconstruct various strategies that are deployed to get back into the labor market.

This paper focuses on the way conflict and cooperation in industrial and community relations interrelate, and how the social space of practices contribute to the emergence of a common cultural heritage, whether it be a workers' heritage or a civil heritage. Furthermore, the dynamics of industrial sectors contribute to the changing aspect and character of what will be recalled as heritage. This analysis outlines the role that industrial relations in textile and shoe manufacturing sectors has had for the configuration of cultural heritage in two declining industrial cities in Eastern Spain: Alcoy (textile) and Elda (shoes). Conflictual industrial relations inside factories were and are linked to cooperative social relations between 'clashing' industrialists and workers. This occurs in daily life through a strong industrial paternalism, and with a strong presence of company owners in the social activities of these cities. This 'weaves' the community around the existence of the textile and shoe factories; a social consensus is sustained by an image of capital and labour as citizens and members of the same community. On the other hand, a common civic heritage has been configured through the folklore festivities of Moors and Christians, in which most city citizens participate irrespective of their social position, and in which the role of workers and industrialists has traditionally been very important. From a qualitative approach, this work analyses the dynamics experienced by these cities' common heritage, and the specific role that workers' cultural heritage has played in it.

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In this article, we focus on consumption in a context of economic hardship. From an empirical perspective, and using a qualitative methodology, we show how disadvantaged individuals and households maintain a level of consumption commensurate with the society in which they are integrated through a type of consumption conceived of here as “resilient”. Resilient consumption is characterized by being a type of expenditure oriented towards maintaining the role of consumer, that is, maintaining a minimum level of purchasing power, modifying to this end both the level and the structure of consumption, both of which are key elements in the resilience process. We identify five main strategies used by households that modify and restructure the consumption of basic goods and necessities in response to economic hardship. Key resilient consumption strategies include: reduction (cutting down on spending), substitution (replacement of one difficulty with another), compensation (pseudo‐consumption or reduced usage), transference (meta‐resilience) and integration (reinterpretation of difficulties as opportunities). We conclude that although consumption is a naturally resilient behaviour, in a crisis context, resilient practices focus on maintaining acquisition capacity in spite of reduced income.

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This article examines the different discourses of trade unions and employers on quality of employment in Spain. The study takes a qualitative approach, using discussion groups to obtain discursive information about the meanings of quality, assessments and the different strategies employed by social agents. Trade unions use the ‘quality discourse’ as a reason to examine and reconstruct their current role, extending their main concerns and paradigms from those which defend workers’ interests to those which consolidate their criticism of a reprehensible Spanish employer class. Employers’ discourse, on the other hand, is aimed at highlighting the market’s productive purpose, and sustaining their privileged position in labour management, whilst disassociating and distancing themselves from the employment decisions they make.