‘In the end you adapt to anything’: Responses to narratives of resilience and entrepreneurship in post-recession Spain

Abstract

Resilience – the ability to bounce back from hardship – is a concept that has become popular during the years of economic crisis and post-recession. Contemporary citizens are expected to be flexible, have a positive attitude and take care of themselves in a context of heightened inequality and precarity. The objective of this article is to analyze how citizens in post-recession Spain respond to media representations that prescribe these values. Eight focus groups were held with middle- and working-class men and women (a total of 62 participants) who discussed four short stories written by the researchers, which condensed the main concepts found in media narratives studied previously (including TV series, reality TV, advertisements, video games and celebrity culture). The results of our analysis show that participants tended to praise change and adaptability. The ‘complacent citizen’, who seeks security and refuses to adapt to the current precarious and unstable environments, emerges as a ‘bad citizen’, and security and stability are pathologized. There were differences between the middle- and working-class groups: while the former clearly adhered to the neoliberal discourse that sees flexibility and self-improvement as a moral obligation, the latter showed a more ambivalent response to these discourses.

Resilience as a Key Factor in the Success of Women-Led Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Literature Review

“…In postrecession Spain, the concept of resilience, defined as the ability to overcome and adapt to adversity, has gained significance. Oliva et al (2022) explored how Spanish citizens internalize media discourses that extol values such as flexibility and personal overcoming. Through eight focus groups with participants from the middle and working classes, their reactions to narratives that praise resilience were analyzed.…”

Self-entrepreneurship in uncertain futures: The case of performing artists in Italy

“…As emphasised by previous studies on creative and cultural workers, actors’ narratives embrace the centrality of passion and self-realisation in the professional field in the quest for a ‘good life’ (McRobbie, 2016; Scharff, 2016) and stress the importance of making the most out of a precarious labour market through adopting an entrepreneurial stance (Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson, 2021; Oliva et al, 2022). However, in the context analysed, the uncertainty of the labour market seems to exceed the condition of sacrifice required to early careers (Armano and Murgia, 2013) and to be a permanent characteristic of workers’ professional paths (Alacovska, 2019).…”