Dokument myśli otwartej. Studia poleskie Józefa Obrębskiego a rozważania o grupach etnicznych i stosunkach narodowościowych w polskiej etnologii i socjologii
A document of open thought: Józef Obrębski’s studies on the Polesie region and debates on ethnic groups and nationality relations in Polish ethnology and sociology

Summary/Abstract: This article attempts to reconstruct and examine the concept of the ethnic diversity and nationalization process found in the writings of the Polish anthropologist and sociologist Józef Obrębski (1905-1967). It will be argued that Obrębski’s view on ethnic diversity and the nationalization allowed him not only to conceive of a highly original idea of nation-building process but also maintain a critical distance from the two forms of reflection and practice—“investigative modalities”—influential in the field of ethnic and national studies in prewar as well as in postwar Poland: “ethnogeography” and the “sociology of nation”. In the same time this text aims at underscoring usefulness of Obrębski’s ideas for contemporary analysis. Close reading of his works provides us with fresh tools for the ethnographic processual examination of the nationalization policies. It draws special attention to the process of nationalization of local populations, highlighting various and contradictory consequences of nationalization process: integration and homogenisation on the one hand and exclusions of minorities and class hierarchization of people on the other.

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