Desenrascanço: Challenging times call for resourceful minds
“If you don't have a dog to hunt with, then hunt with a cat.”
Desenrascanço (Portuguese)
One of the most unexpected challenges of parenthood, at least for me, has been how much stuff there is to remember to bring with you everywhere at all times. Water bottles. Bento boxes. Snacks. Toys. Backup undies (for the kid, not for me). I'm constantly forgetting some random essential, so every trip out with my toddler becomes an episode of Survivor, where I'm forced to come up with a creative solution to an everyday problems.
Recently, I came across a Portuguese word that captures this feeling: “desenrascanço.” It literally translates to “disentanglement,” but it describes the ability to quickly improvise and solve problems using whatever means are available, even with limited resources. In this video, Joana Astolfi, a Lisbon-based architect and artist, describes the meaning of the word in detail:
Astolfi likens the word to a Portuguese saying: “If you don't have a dog to hunt with, then hunt with a cat.”
But Astolfi and others say that desenrascanço isn’t just about MacGyver-ing out of a problem. It represents a virtue in Portuguese culture that goes beyond resourcefulness and also describes the mindset of someone who refuses to be defeated by challenging circumstances.
It’s a virtue that feels especially relevant lately. As traditional institutions become increasingly unreliable — from healthcare systems to government services — more people are turning to mutual aid networks, community resources, and neighborhood friends to fill the gaps.
Desenrascanço seems to be in that same spirit of figuring out how to make things work in the face of challenging times.
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As Portuguese mother it was peculiar reading that very common word in the beginning of your title. I once heard an US citizen that lives in Portugal translating “desenrascar” as “to macgyver” your way out of something.