A Year in the Life: Living Portraits of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Portugal

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic took people by surprise in its deep immediate impact and in its extent over time. One year after it was globally widespread, the effects were still being felt in people’s daily lives. But what has changed during this period? There are many answers to this question. We reflect on this interrogation departing from the results of a sociological research that was ongoing, in Portugal, in March 2020, when the first lockdown took place in the country: “Biographical echoes: triangulation in the study of life histories”. The necessary adaptation of the research design, due to the impossibility of conducting interviews in co-presence, resulted in a spin-off project where we contacted the participants that have already been interviewed to share with us their experiences of the pandemic through phone interviews, photographs of their daily lives and short messages via smartphone, and maintained contact with them over time. During the second lockdown in Portugal, in 2021, we re-interviewed them and received more images. Based on this data, in this chapter we develop a reflection not only on the process of conducting biographical research in abruptly changed research circumstances, but also on how the participants’ perceptions of time and space, as well as their relationships and practices evolved over a year in a pandemic context.