Representing crisis and (in)security – the case of Rui Zink’s A Instalação do Medo

Resumo

This article aims to question the literary representation of concepts such as crisis, fear and safety that permeate the contemporary European political, social and cultural fabric. The main focus of my analysis is the intersection between different spheres: public and private, media and popular discourses, reality and fiction. I am interested in examining the Portuguese context and cultural production, since I consider this to be a privileged area for the observation of the dynamics between these different spheres. As a case study I will address the novel A Instalação do Medo (Installing Fear), a 2012 novel by the Portuguese author Rui Zink, in which he catalogues everyday fears installed by specific political agendas. I intend to explore some questions including: “What devices support this installation and with what purpose?”; “Who creates and consumes these fears?” and “How are they culturally produced and reproduced?” For this purpose I will rely in the arguments of David L. Altheide (Terrorism and the Politics of Fear); Zygmunt Bauman (Liquid Fear); Gilles Deleuze (“Society of Control”); Ulrich Beck (Risk Society) and José Gil (Medo de Existir) [Fear of Being/Existing].