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The City That Is Not: Apophasis and Anglo-Saxon Urbanism

Author(s): Rafał Borysławski / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article discusses two Old English cases of walking through cities that no longer exist and the implications that such visions entail for early medieval philosophical perspectives. The first part proposes a conjectural vision of the city of Rome from around the time of the visits of young Prince Alfred of Wessex, future King Alfred the Great, in 853 and in 855 A.D. The second part is constructed upon an understanding of one of the Exeter Book elegies, “The Ruin”, presenting musings on whatever remained from another Roman city, conceivably identifiable with Aqua Sulis, that is, Bath. The reflections of the former encounter with the city may be, perhaps, found in the Meters that accompany Alfred-inspired translation of Boethius’s “De consolatione philosophiae”, and the city present in “The Ruin” is another example of the excidio urbis theme. Together, the two visions confirm the Old English metaphysical value of the city that becomes its negative, that is, the city that is formed by absences, lacunae, and vestiges of its past. Seen in this light, the “cities that are not” are presented here as instances of apophatic thinking, akin to that of Pseudo-Dionysius, whereby more can be expressed by questions and negative statements than by factual testimonials. The proposed Anglo-Saxon walks through ruined cities paradoxically offer an augmentation of reality and an existential practice in the elusiveness of signification extending beyond urban boundaries.

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The Maze, the Fog, the Mass, the Dog: Sherlock Holmes in London

Author(s): Justyna Jajszczok / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article revolves around the concept of the late-Victorian London as an accomplice in crime. Employing a number of literary examples but mostly concentrating on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, the text investigates specific techniques the metropolis uses in order to aid criminals and hinder the work of law-enforcement officers. The labyrinthine structure of the city, its ability to envelop itself in impenetrable yellow fog, and its vast population make the late nineteenth-century London a haven for wrongdoers. The final part of the article presents arguments in favour of the claim that only Sherlock Holmes is capable of leading a successful career of a private investigator in such a crime-aiding city. This is made possible not just because of his extraordinary observational skills, but also due to the fact that the detective, as presented in the stories, possesses a number of unique canine features which make him immune to London’s tricks.

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The Portrait of the City in Wim Wenders’s “Lisbon Story”

Author(s): Sonia Front / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The paper addresses the depiction of the city in Wim Wenders’s film “Lisbon Story” (1994). The film meditates on the “death of the cinema” resulting from the commercialization of the image and globalization of culture, accompanied by the destruction of space. Wenders protests against the postmodernist consumption and homogeneity of space by presenting Lisbon as a city arrested in time, beyond the impact of corporate culture. Expressing his distrust of images, he creates a heterogeneous portrait of the city, superimposing soundscape over the landscape, whereby sounds, particularly music, encode the emotional attitude to the city, experienced in a kinesthetic manner.

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Walking through (Hi)stories: City and Temporality in Vandana Singh’s “Delhi”

Author(s): Agnieszka Podruczna / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article constitutes an attempt at an in-depth analysis of the way in which Vandana Singh, in her short story “Delhi,” engages in a discussion concerning the relationship between the urban space, hegemonic colonial narrative, and the subjectivity of the historical account, reframing it in terms of speculative fiction. This practice, framed as a counter-discursive attempt at rewriting the history of the Other, allows the author to comment upon the ways in which that history has been created and shaped. Adopting the postcolonial discourse as well as theory of science fiction as the primary methodological background, the article aims to explore the themes of collective memory and postcolonial reclaiming practices, framed in terms of a spatial-temporal journey through the urban space of Delhi, with the view of substantiating the thesis that the act of walking through the city in both the spatial and the temporal sense constitutes a counter-discursive attempt at reclaiming the colonial narrative and challenging the status quo.

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Amidst the Wonders of the City: Countenances of Moscow in Barbara Włodarczyk’s “Wide Tracks”

Author(s): Monika Kowalczyk-Piaseczna / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article analyses the various countenances of Moscow which have been presented by Barbara Włodarczyk in the cycle of television reportages “Wide Tracks”. The text focuses on illustrating the specific features of a film report that allow its author to present the wondrous picture of the Russian capital emerging from the particular fragments of the discussed reportages. Moreover, as a result of juxtaposition of the reports from that part of the city, which overwhelms one with its richness and splendour, with the accounts from these corners of Moscow in which the continuous struggle for survival takes place, the article examines the internal contradictions which may be observed within the depicted urban space. The analysed cycle also exposes the series of political conflicts which undermine the immaculate image of Moscow as a wondrous city, presented by some of the characters of the discussed film pictures, and simultaneously, it allows one to discover some new, less known countenances of the metropolis.

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Anorexia and the City: Special Significance of the Urban Environment in Eating Disorder Memoirs

Author(s): Nina Augustynowicz / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The article examines a book of memoirs belonging to a larger group of textual representations of individual struggle with anorexia in order to shed light on the city as a crucial character in the account of the disease. “Kid Rex: The Inspiring True Account of a Life Salvaged from Anorexia, Despair and Dark Days in New York City” (2008) by Laura Moisin is one of many recent publications touching upon the subject of eating disorders penned by and depicting the life of young upper middle class big city women. First notable books of this kind appeared around 1980, while since the beginning of this century we have been observing a steady increase in this respect, resulting in the proliferation of these personal narratives in popular culture. In accordance with the research suggesting that the incidence of eating disorders is higher in urban areas, publications of this kind all seem to refer to such environments; however, the aforementioned book could be considered special here as it portrays the deep-reaching relations between witnessing the events of September 11 attacks and the development of the disease. Even though it remains unclear which elements of cityscapes are responsible for the higher incidence of the anorexia, the acute experiences offered by NYC around the time of the attack highlight the probable causes. Employing the interdisciplinary perspectives offered by psychogeography, food studies and sociology of medicine, the article analyses how the influence of the city on female victims of anorexia is presented in the memoir to show that urban spaces may function both as a symptom of and as a factor contributing to the disease.

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Anxious City: The Fears and Apprehensions of Citizens and Tourists in Modern Urban Areas

Author(s): Bożena Kilian / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In today’s world numerous dangers seem to threaten human lives. Modern society is claimed to be fearful and anxious, hence it is exposed to perils that are neither comprehensive nor controllable. Both global and local threats, such as economic crises, unprecedented technological advancement, terrorism or climate change and the increasing instability in the job market, crime or otherness influence everyday existence of modern man, who becomes increasingly apprehensive. The persistent atmosphere of fear is additionally nourished and sustained by the ubiquitous message presented by the media, which selectively focus on the negative broadcast. Modern cities, which are now perceived as a location where otherness is to be rather feared than praised and cultivated, are believed to be places which encapsulate almost all contemporary fears. First and foremost, they are scenes where the fear of crime takes its toll. Not only does it shape the structure of the city, as it leads to the establishment of the so-called gated communities, occupying closed and guarded estates, but primarily the relationships among different formal and informal social groups existing within the city. Feared are those of different race, religion, nationality, social status, gender, and even age. Being other, feared are also those coming to cities as tourists. In the face of the fact that city tourism is on the increase one could suspect that this is entirely safe and entertaining pastime; however, the analysis of urban tourism leaves no doubt that it also brings certain dose of fear and anxiety. The article aims at presenting various fears and anxieties experienced within urban area by both tourists and citizens.

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Between Architecture and Cultural Studies: Reflections on the Constitution and Devaluation of Urban Public Spaces

Author(s): Andrzej Bełdowski,Tomasz Burzyński / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This interdisciplinary paper aims to outline the role of architecture in the societal construction and devaluation of civic public spaces from the perspectives of theoretical architecture, cultural studies, and theory of culture. When perceived in the context of the agency/structure duality, urban public spaces could be seen as societal constructs whose character and identity can be traced to the holistic organisation of architectural forms within a given locale. At the same time, the deflation in the quality of public spaces may be explained by making references to mutually reinforcing processes of spatial commodification and symbolic violence which are both exercised by implanting pure, self-explicable architectural forms into well-entrenched urban spaces.

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Participatory Budgeting: Action Research Procedures in Community Work

Author(s): Witold Mandrysz / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Implementation of actions based on consensus and social dialogue builds a proper climate for cooperation among all social forces in order to solve a given problem or achieve a definite goal, also at local community level (Cohen, 1978; Ross, 1967). One of the manifestations of the practical implementation of the concept of participatory democracy and civil dialogue at the local community level, are actions within assumptions of participatory budgeting which may be defined as a form of “collective” decision-making process, within the framework of which, the inhabitants along with the local authorities co-create the city budget (Ganuza, Baiocchi, 2012; Górski 2007). A specific method that enables the checking of the level of willingness of members of a community to undertake common project actions is a participating intervention research. Planning extensive and costly environmental projects such as revitalization projects, should be preceded with implementation of a participatory budget according to methodology of participating intervention research.

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Doing Participatory Research with Families that Live in Poverty: the Process, Potential and Limitations

Author(s): Chiara Panciroli,Francesca Corradini / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The contribution discusses a practical application of the participatory research approach in the field of poverty. The research was implemented with a high degree of participation, and the collaboration of some families who were living in a marginalized neighbourhood of Reggio Emilia, a small city in Northern Italy. In the contribution, the potentialities and limits of this approach are presented. In particular, the benefits from the perspectives of all participants are described and analysed. The research process contributed to strengthening the co-researchers’ capabilities and raised their consciousness. In conclusion, a description of the usefulness and added value that participatory research provides to the field of social work and the future of research in this field is given.

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Difficulties Faced by Researchers in Participatory Practices: An Example of Research with Roma People

Author(s): Marek Mikulec,Kateřina Glumbíková / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The number of socially excluded localities and persons residing in them has significantly increased in the Czech Republic over the last ten years. Socially excluded localities have their specific characteristics and environment that very often concern exclusively the Roma localities. The participatory research aims to gain access to the locality followed by the establishment of communication and cooperation with local residents. These relationships, however, show a number of difficulties that in this contribution are reconstructed based on the ethnographic research conducted in a socially excluded locality inhabited by the Roma community. Some partial recommendations have been formulated for accessing the field. These are recommendations relating to the individual characteristics of the researcher, the specific characteristics of the environment and the characteristics of the target group (the Roma community).

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Dilemmas in Participatory Approaches to Social Work

Author(s): Alice Gojová,Kateřina Glumbíková / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Both the community work and the participatory research can be understood as approaches used in social work that increase participants’ capacity to improve their lives and facilitate social change for the benefit of disadvantaged groups. In participatory approaches, dilemmas can arise, which are defined as a situation where a social worker faces two mutually exclusive choices, which he/she has to choose from. We also perceive dilemmas in both approaches as emerging in the interaction with the systems of values. The paper presents the findings from two research projects whose objectives included the identification of dilemmas from two areas, namely from community work and from a participatory approach to homeless mothers. The dilemmas are divided into two categories; from the perspectives of community workers and from a researcher’s point of view. To interpret data we used the theory of empowerment and the typology of power by the authors John French and Bertram Raven (1960). As part of the discussion, the paper provides an overview of dilemmas in participatory approaches to social work research, on the example of the above-mentioned projects.

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Lines of Activity Addressed to Families: Limiting the Participatory Approach as with Casework Practitioners

Author(s): Izabela Kamińska-Jatczak / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The chapter shows the course of activity of family assistants – caseworkers situated in the field of child protection practice in Poland. The contribution undertakes a reflection on the constraints in the implementation of the participatory approach which is found in the process of activities performed by assistants. These constraints are related to the scale of the problems faced by family members, as well as the wider determinants of institutional and legislative issues that prescribe the formal framework for the activity of caseworkers. The chapter describes the types of participation of family assistants and users that show the real face of participation, located in the field of social work with families, in particular in relation to child protection practice.

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Doing Participatory Action Research: Reflections on Criticality and Social Justice from the Researchers’ Perspective

Author(s): Di Bailey,Adam Barnard,Linda Kemp / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This chapter explores Participatory Action Research (PAR) from the perspective of researchers who have applied PAR practises in two projects in the United Kingdom which are offered here as case studies. The first case study is a PAR based project which contemplates PAR by utilising the concept of “talking” as an activity for co-constructing knowledge about how young people who self-harm could be better helped when visiting their General Practitioners (GPs). The second is a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), funded to improve a UK local authority’s children’s service and participation of children and young people in service design and delivery. Each case study is written and reflected upon by an individual contributor to this chapter. The chapter outlines what participatory action research is and advocates why PAR is valuable for Social Work. Case studies are then introduced and critically discussed leading to the authors’ critical self-reflections and concluding comments.

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Urban Resistances and Migrant Activism Challenging the Border Regime in Madrid City

Author(s): Ana Santamarina / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

On the night of the 15th March 2018, the neighbourhood of Lavapiés in Madrid was literally on fire. A burst of rage swelled the streets as the district became a battlefield. That night, Madrid was raising its voice for Mame Mbaye, a black African resident that died just few hours ago running from a police identity control. A migrant insurrection broke out against these racist controls that had been increasingly happening in the neighbourhood since Mame arrived fourteen years ago. This time it was Mame, but it could have been any of the migrants that were claiming justice that night. The night of the 15th March was an explosion of urban rage in which Madrid claimed not to be a border anymore. In a later interview, Mame’s friend Serigne stated: “In Madrid you live with fear. Every morning we joke and say each other: ‘Have a good breakfast because you never know if you will ever be back home for lunch”.

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Locuinţa socială din România în context european

Author(s): Daniel-Gabriel Valceanu / Language(s): Romanian Publication Year: 0

The chapter presents an analysis of theRomanian social house in an European context.

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Fridrih Engels i seljaštvo

Author(s): Srđan Lj. Šljukić,Marica N. Šljukić / Language(s): Serbian Publication Year: 0

While K. Marx, when it is about agrarian and rural, mostly dealt with the questions of commercial agriculture, like land rent, work force, etc, his associate F. Engels focused on social position, fate and role of peasantry in (past and expected) revolutions. In this paper we give a review of Engels’s views on peasantry, with an analysis and a critique. With his descriptions of the social position of the German, the French and the Russian peasantry, and of rural commune as one of the traditional institutions of rural society, Engels contributed to sociology. His claims that peasantry must disappear and that it is not capable to protect and promote their own interests, exert a significant influence upon the political practice in the socialist societies of the XX century.

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Zemljani put revolucije. Seljačko pitanje u Engelsovim kasnim radovima

Author(s): Bojan Vranić / Language(s): Serbian Publication Year: 0

The paper deals with the peasant question in the socialist thought of the second half 19th century, with special reference to the work of Friedrich Engels. In the classic socialist literature, the peasant question has long been marked as a marginal question of property, as can best be seen from Marx’s analysis in Louis Bonaparte’s Eighteenth Brimer. Almost half a century later, Engels approaches the peasant question from another angle, considering the problem of small peasants as a cultural, not just an economic problem. The paper will show that Engels’ analysis of the peasant question opened new avenues for socialist theory, which leads to a revision of the classical doctrine of the proletarian revolution and suggests an evolutionary path of social change.

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Działalność tradycyjna kół gospodyń wiejskich jako forma partycypacji społecznej

Author(s): Małgorzata Ewelina Szymańska / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Cultural heritage is a part of the economy that should be successfully used. Traditional food products are becoming a kind of investment for local communities and an incentive to achieve socio-economic benefits. They are part of the heritage, and given the changing trends and the growing demand for local food products, they can contribute to the development of entrepreneurship. Every economic initiative starts with an idea and a resource on which ideas can be developed. All these classic elements of entrepreneurship work the same for products created on the basis of the local food product heritage. The development of entrepreneurship inspired by the heritage of the local food product makes it possible to implement especially those undertakings whose idea is based on locality, neighborhood, ecology, nature, social authenticity and corporate responsibility. This is the opportunity to create something unique, different from the competitors’ offer. The combination of traditional products with modern methods of processing, presentation and sales creates an innovative, highly competitive product. Products of local food heritage create a new clientele among tourists who are more and more aware consumers and residents who want to identify with the place of origin or residence.

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Calitatea spaţiilor publice în Orientul Mijlociu şi Africa de Nord - o perspectivă comparativă

Author(s): Alexandru-Ionuţ Petrişor,Liliana Elza PETRIŞOR / Language(s): Romanian Publication Year: 0

This study specifically analyzes the MENAT area (Middle East and North Africa plus Turkey) using images collected during self-funded on-site documentary studies to look at the public space. The analysis included Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt in Africa, and Turkey and Jordan in Asia. The analysis found out a gradient starting with well designed public spaces in the large cities, down to a lack of care for the public space, seen often as “no one’s land” in informal settlements and small cities. These contrasts between countries, within the same country and even within the same city are a common feature of the analyzed area.

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