Borders Metaphors in Sociology of Borderlands Cover Image

Metafory granicy w socjologii pogranicza
Borders Metaphors in Sociology of Borderlands

Author(s): Joanna Kurczewska
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Summary/Abstract: The paper shows a creative crisis of present sociology of borderlands (especially of Polish sociology) by bringing in this sociology rich resources of metaphors of borders linked to modern and postmodern sociological imagery. Its aim is to reach below the surface (of this subdiscipline of sociology) to the level of the individual and collective consciousness engaged in analytical strategies, theoretical and empirical. In an attempt to begin to find some answers to these questions a reconstruction of three contextual operations on the metaphors of borders was conducted. These different types of mental operations base on very different approach to metaphors. The first operation is an instrument of theoretician for restoring the knowledge of the theoretical typology of borders and borderlands. The second is a tool of a deepened reflection of researcher on empirical data concerning individual and collective reaction toward border and borderlands. The third is a tool of a narration used by examined people living on the borderlands (not by sociologists and anthropologists providing field research). Summing up, the paper broadly and intensively discusses the functions of different metaphors about borders respectively to this types of intellectual operations, and is closely connected to a question of belonging this intellectual operations on metaphors to the project of interdisciplinary approach to borders and borderlands

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 8
  • Page Range: 43-69
  • Page Count: 27
  • Language: Polish