Paper short abstract:

This paper takes a long term view of the way in which a century of recurrent 'crises' has affected family histories in Portugal. It is inspired in the idea that such crises are crises of fraternity and they come to assume a form of agency causing people to move in synchrony.

Paper long abstract:

Broad scale events - such as wars, epidemics, revolutions, economic recessions - affect people's lives in systemic ways. Personal ontogenesis comes to be deeply marked by the circumstances that open up or close desired possibilities. Constitutive mutuality is affected in determined ways, thus affecting the nature of the household, the family, the village, the nation, the EU.This paper takes a long term view of the way in which a century of recurrent 'crises' has affected family histories in Portugal. It is inspired in the concept proposed by the poet e.e.cummings that such crises are crises of fraternity and they come to assume a form of agency causing people to move in synchrony.